


The Speed of Objects in Motion

by holyfant



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Minor Character Death, Original Character(s), Relationship Problems, Unhealthy Relationships, light injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 12:19:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 48,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holyfant/pseuds/holyfant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock, John and a lifetime of falling together and apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Скорость движущихся тел](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031281) by [KatiSark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatiSark/pseuds/KatiSark)



> This was written for the AO3 fandom auction for Jan in Fresno, who wanted to see Sherlock and John growing older together. I hope you like it, Jan. <3 Deepest thanks to teahigh, elenothar and mistyzeo for giving me their feedback on this and tightening it up.

“When objects large enough to generate their own gravity fields come into each other's influence spheres, they increase their destructive force as they hurtle towards each other, and they are lucky if they escape each other's gravity at all after the collision, surfaces damaged and cracked from the impact and black hole cores shuddering with new activity.”

\- Evolving Universe: the Biography of the Cosmos, Govert Schilling

 

 

 

**October 2027**

 

Why in all his years he never felt like he needed to know what it's like in outer space: it's already easy enough to be suspended, weightless, in the slow rising and falling of his thoughts. It's easy enough to rush through the years of his life on his own, time jumping and hiccuping, folding away around him; he can easily retreat into the columned structure of his mind, open and shut the doors at will, and feel like the centre of a large, wheeling structure, globules of knowledge kept in orbit by the organising principle of his mind. There is more than enough space inside of him to never need more. His mind palace is a spider-web structure, able to carry many times his weight, with a dark centre and many arms branching out, in a fragile balance.

 

_Jim Moriarty isn't a man_ , he'd said once, _he's a spider._

 

He never told John about the feeling of knowing another predator when you saw it, the jolt of recognition as you realised that you were matched eye for eye, limb for limb. There were things that John was better off not knowing. Sherlock is convinced of that, still, even after everything's that happened.

 

It was dark out, Sherlock remembers, with light rain soundlessly misting the window; John was in the kitchen of 221B, waiting for the kettle to boil, his presence heavy with the weight of the day. Or no: that's not what happened. John wasn't there, and he'd taken the kettle with him to his new apartment. This was _after_. Sherlock, feet up on the armrest of the sofa, watched jumping spiders on the telly, web-less, jittery, calculating. No safety net, just the acrobatics of their bodies. He'd felt like laughing then, and almost even did.

 

Now, coming back into himself after a plunge into the memories of that time, feeling the weight of his body restored, the light from the garden is waning and careful. On the feeding platter, a lonesome jackdaw has scared all of the little birds away and is taking its time gobbling up all of the bread crusts that Sherlock left there in the morning. If John were here, he'd go out into the garden, brandishing his cane like a weapon, and chase the bird off. John Watson, fierce protector of all that is small and easily outclassed. (And of Sherlock, which had always been the strange anomaly.)

 

Of course, John isn't here.

 

Sherlock, stiff with the passing of the hours, gets up from his armchair carefully, rolling around the old pain in his shoulder until it fades a little. The air in the old verandah is chilly and moist, with the sour edge of metal that Sherlock always tastes in here when autumn draws to a close, as if the iron window casings start to give off particles of wet rust.

 

“ _At least take a blanket if you're going to sit in there for hours again,” John says mildly, glancing up from his book._

 

“ _I'm fine,” Sherlock says, feeling more than warm enough._

 

As he watches, the jackdaw takes off suddenly, startled by something. Possibly one of the wild-roaming cats from number 7, down the road, Sherlock thinks. The outlines of the old pines at the back of the garden are already fading away into the creeping gloom. Sherlock can still vaguely see the dark rectangular shapes of the hives. What he immediately liked about this house, even before seeing the verandah – the respectful distance of its neighbours, the thick hedges between the gardens that mute all sounds – he likes still. He saw moving vans today: mahogany closets and an oak table, white-painted chairs, colourful children's toys, a girl's horseriding gear. The family itself wasn't there, but Sherlock knows with near-certainty it's a mother, stepfather and three children, aged between 6 and 13 – but then, there's always something, and it doesn't seem that important anymore without anyone to tell. Mr. Dawridge of number 9 must have succumbed some time ago, then. Sherlock wouldn't know: he doesn't bother to read the mail that arrives in the letterbox anymore. Mr. Dawridge – widower, advanced lung cancer – had stopped by sometimes to buy honey in recent months, long after John had left. Said it eased his breathing in a way that no pain killer could. Had found it amusing to ask Sherlock how many months he reckoned he still had to go. After he stopped coming, Sherlock realised they never exchanged first names.

 

_Day 758_ , Sherlock thinks, body and mind aching, and it feels aimless, a thought lost to the dark froth on the surface of the evening.

 

 

 

**April 2013**

 

When Sherlock gets off the plane at Heathrow, he gets efficiently manhandled by a customs officer, who is quite professional at hiding his alarm at the practical guide to sustainable auto-cannibalism in Sherlock's coat pocket. Sherlock almost thinks about explaining, for a second, and that is enough to make him realise he is close to a nervous breakdown.

 

He goes into the loos, and locks himself in a cubicle. He presses himself up against the side and covers his eyes with his hands, trying to find a foothold in the darkness behind his eyelids. It's pathetic, and there are cameras whose operators might find it suspicious how long he's spending in here, but there is something heavy and hot in his throat that he can't swallow away, that impedes his breathing, that spreads through his body in shocks and leaves him weak.

 

It dawns on him that he might be having a panic attack, and when he thinks about what John might say – _Sit down for a bit, try to breathe normally. Sherlock, come on. For God's sake, just do it. Listen to me for once, you – ugh. Come sit, here, come on. Breathe. –_ it doesn't really help, not this time.

 

After a while, the pebble of heat lodged in his windpipe seems to drop a little, and his breathing calms. He takes his hands away from his eyes, and stares at the cream white of the cubicle wall opposite. _Welcome 2 London_ , someone's written there. _Tits or GTFO._ Someone else, in spidery handwriting: _this is the gents, stupid_

 

Mycroft had warned him for this, in that infuriating Mycroft way of his. “Shall I arrange for a driver?” he'd delicately asked on the phone, and Sherlock, understanding it exactly for the kindness it was, had ended the call without another word. Mycroft had texted him later, once: _John will not be coming to the airport to pick you up. I will send someone. –M_

 

He draws a deep breath. There's the scent of men's urinals, overlaid with the soap and sterility that is the same in airport bathrooms all around the world. The feeling of unease persists, but the knot in his chest loosens a little when he reminds himself that he is in London. He has the home advantage again. The city will mould to him as it has before. The thought calms him down.

 

He leaves the airport without looking for Mycroft's driver and ducks into a taxi. The address is strange and large in his mouth, the city fast and always-changed.

 

 

*

 

Mrs. Hudson has aged since he's last seen her. He doesn't like it. It's clear she's still reeling a bit from the news; she offers him tea from his own cupboard, and then nervously apologises for treating him like a guest.

 

He _is_ a guest, he realises. He can easily tell she hasn't really touched anything in the flat since John moved out, a couple of weeks after Sherlock's funeral; after that it turned into a mausoleum of sorts, the heavy weight of the everyday still there. It's like he's infringing on a sacred place, on his own memorial service. It feels more like visiting his own grave than visiting his actual grave ever did.

 

“I dusted once a week,” she tells him, cradling her cup of tea.

 

“Why didn't you look for new lodgers?” he asks her, sitting at his own table, ill at ease.

 

She looks at him with wet eyes, loyal eyes, shuttered, hurt eyes – the skin around them is crinkled and fragile like paper. The question itself is just another betrayal, which he suddenly feels keenly.

 

“I'm sorry,” he says. An apology to her was never difficult to mean.

 

She puts her cup down, gets up and shuffles towards the television, reaching for the remote control; when she flicks it on he's immediately met by his own image. Months ago; press pictures; the hat; John in the background.

 

“They've been talking about you all day,” she says, back towards him, maroon sweater, silver hair. “The radio, too.”

 

“Yes,” he says. “Mycroft.” He focuses on John in the background; John pulling at his hat like it doesn't really matter. Like he'll do anything. Like he'll follow Sherlock anywhere, wearing anything, _doing_ anything.

 

Mrs. Hudson turns, which draws his eye towards her, in that living room, and she looks wretched, looks nothing like he would ever want her to look. “You should have told us,” she says, the judgement soft.

 

He notes the use of “us”, and disregards what it means. He wants to say _I didn't know how_ , and instead says: “It was important that I didn't,” which is also true.

 

“That's what _he_ said,” she says, and turns the telly off. She is brave, she is. He's always known it. She is old and she has left a marriage that hurt her and she has never looked back and she has stolen a phone for him and she does not regret not having children and she challenges Mycroft and she comes up when Sherlock is sulking. He can't think of anyone braver than she. She confirms it, and says: “He should never have been the one to tell us.”

 

There is nothing he can say that will make sense to her, so he doesn't try. Deep down, he wishes she'd leave him alone. He'd feel better if he could tell her he hadn't wanted to, but the truth is he gladly gave over the task of telling them he was still alive to Mycroft. The problem of registration: the removal of problems. When you do not witness something, it can hardly be said to exist.

 

She exists. She wavers in the face of his silence. Brave. But loves him. Two forces at work. “Your tea's old,” she says, giving him this, and it's a relief. “I'll bring up mine next time.”

 

*

 

“There is nothing I want to say to you,” John says, through clenched teeth, as he thrusts his key at the keyhole of his building.

 

“I want to say something to you,” Sherlock says, heart hammering in his throat.

 

“I don't want to hear it.”

 

It would be lovely to say that he resists, but in the face of John, in the face of John's _face_ , and in the face of his aggressive stabs at the door, it's simply easier not to. It isn't what he was expecting of himself, but there is something sluggish in him these days, something that wants to admit defeat.

 

*

 

_I suggest you try again._

– _M_

 

Sherlock hates his brother, _hates_ his brother, _hates his brother,_ hates this feeling of being reduced, of being diminished, of growing down in stages, as though he's eight again and Mycroft, ruffled and red-faced, pulls him out of the clay pits in the forest, where he was trying to collect mud samples to look at under the microscope Daddy had given him (“for your birthday”, though it had been October).

 

 

 

**May 2013**

 

It's been nineteen days since Sherlock exchanged three sentences with John, the first words they've spoken to each other in ten months. Lestrade, whose texting tone had gone from cheerful to exasperated over the past week, has stopped replying to his texts, and Sherlock is vaguely impressed by his resolve. Molly has let him come to the morgue once, looking so sympathetic and understanding that he bullied her into giving him a severed arm she definitely wasn't allowed to give him with a grim sense of satisfaction, a feeling of dirty triumph that completely faded later and left him feeling hollow. He hasn't contacted her again, and she for her part has kept her silence. He's not sure he can stand it, any of it: the flat, that is full of his ghost with barely any room for the real him, Mrs. Hudson, so gentle and so quietly on his side that it feels like a judgement, and the idea that even _Molly Hooper_ wouldn't be truly glad to see him, but would only be humouring him out of some sort of compassion that all of humankind apart from him apparently shares.

 

The night is quiet and wet outside, the streetlights hateful yellow smudges in the rain. He can't bring himself to draw the curtains, even though the sight of the peaceful street frustrates him further. Mrs. Hudson went to bed hours ago; he could clearly imagine her routine listening to the scraping of a chair over the floor, the opening and closing of cabinets, the ticking of the water pipes, finally the silence. Her hip has been paining her even more than usual the past days; John would be worried.

 

He is restless with an unpleasant energy, that sends him pacing from the kitchen to the sofa, and again, and again, always coming up short against the table. For the first time since he moved back into Baker Street, Sherlock allows himself to bring up John's number on the screen of his phone. It's just a name, it's just a number. There is no reason to assume it isn't still John's current number; John isn't the one who disappeared. John isn't the one who had to cover his tracks and leave behind his hair in nondescript pub bathrooms and check into hotels under a different name every week. A sudden, violent spike of anger surges through him – he did _nothing wrong_. He did _everything right_. Who else would go to such lengths to protect the people they...?

 

He calls the number, riding on the waves of his angry impulse, without any sort of plan.

 

John picks up on the first ring. “Watson,” he says tiredly, clearly still awake, despite the hour.

 

Sherlock's brain is a wonder, a miracle, an organising principle that speeds through galaxies of knowledge in seconds and holds up data and facts to the brilliance of its own light. In that moment, it truly shines with eloquence and intelligence.

 

“Er,” Sherlock says, nearly tripping over his own feet.

 

“Watson,” John says again, a little more loudly.

 

“Holmes,” Sherlock says almost automatically. “It's – Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock.”

 

John goes quiet on the other side of the line. Sherlock presses his phone to his ear, hard. He doesn't hear anything.

 

“Oh,” John finally says.

 

Sherlock stands in his living room, suddenly depleted of all anger, and slowly fills up with a longing so great, so desperate, that it screws shut his mouth, fills up his throat, makes his knees go weak.

 

“Well?” John asks. “What's so important that you had to call me at three in the morning?”

 

He waits. Sherlock tries to speak, tries to find a way to put into words the harsh edge of the way he _misses_ John, of the way that thinking of John while he's not here feels like swallowing stones, that weigh him down and make it impossible to ever get up again, of the way that it's even worse now that they're in the same city again, and Sherlock knows John doesn't want to see him.

 

It's impossible. “Meet me,” he finally manages. “Lunch. Or coffee.”

 

“Jesus, Sherlock, you –” John snaps, but then seems to take a moment to calm down. Sherlock can hear him draw in a breath. “Call me again in the morning like a functional adult, and then we'll talk,” he says, clipped, and rings off.

 

Sherlock drops the phone onto the sofa cushions, and stands for a bit longer, heart carefully climbing down from his throat back into his chest. He feels like laughing. _A functional adult_ , as though John were one to speak. Hah.

 

He glances at his watch – nearly quarter past three. At least four more hours before John would concede that it's suitably morning.

 

*

 

John shakes off the rain droplets on the collar of his coat, accidentally splashing the lady at the table next to theirs.

 

“Sorry,” John says, grimacing, putting up an apologetic hand. She goes from startled to mollified, and smiles at him. It makes Sherlock's insides clench. The air inside Speedy's is damp, smelling of people's rainy clothes drying. The low murmur of conversation around them sets Sherlock's teeth on edge.

 

John sits down opposite Sherlock. The way that he lowers his body into the seat is tense, careful; as though he's calculating his chances of escape.

 

“Tough shift at the clinic,” Sherlock says, automatically reading John's face, then realises that he probably should have greeted John first.

 

John smiles tightly in that way that isn't a smile. “Good to see you haven't changed too much.” He brings his cup of coffee to his mouth, and looks away from Sherlock. He taps his fingers on the tabletop, thrumming with tension.

 

“Look, John,” Sherlock begins, trying to remember what the order was of the things he wanted to say. Seeing the way John looks everywhere but Sherlock is unsettling. “You should know that I only did what I did to –”

 

“I've been watching the news,” John interrupts, in such a steady, calm voice that Sherlock automatically falls silent. John licks his lips. “I know why you did it.”

 

Sherlock blinks. Apart from the glimpse he caught when Mrs. Hudson turned on the telly on that first evening, he's avoided looking up what has been said about him and his return in the press. It never felt like something he needed to know: other people's opinions hardly matter.

 

“Did they mention the snipers?”

 

“Yes,” John tells the table.

 

“Did they mention that you would die if –”

 

“Yes,” John bites, and finally, _finally_ , meets Sherlock's eye straight on. “Yes, that was covered. Extensively. Very heroic, Sherlock. Very... selfless.”

 

Sherlock feels unsettled by the extent of the cold anger he sees on John's face, twisting his familiar features into something ugly. A new face for John, one that Sherlock hasn't seen before. He narrows his eyes to study it, to make it something he can understand.

 

“But you're still angry,” he says. “Why? If you know why that was... why are you still this angry?”

 

John presses his eyes shut forcefully and massages the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “You're such an... Can you really not figure out why I'm not skipping with joy here?” When Sherlock just looks at him, he makes a frustrated noise. “I don't suppose you could have _sent me a fucking text_ , or anything?”

 

“Ah – no,” Sherlock says, “that would have been –”

 

“Or stopped at a payphone somewhere to tell me that, oh, by the way, John, _I'm not really dead_.”

 

“– dangerous,” Sherlock finishes.

 

“A postcard, from wherever the fuck you've been. _John, the weather here is hateful and the food is terrible. You'd love it. I'm alive. Sherlock._ ”

 

Sherlock is startled into a laugh at the absurdity of it. “John, that really wasn't possible.”

 

“A telegram,” John says, face blanking. “John stop not dead stop will explain later stop don't worry stop Sherlock stop.” He stops and looks Sherlock in the eye for a moment. Sherlock doesn't know what to do except stare back. “Or, I dunno,” John continues, voice flat. “A coded message in the women seeking men adverts. _Stupidly tall detective seeking short army doctor. Applicants must not be dead._ Or you could have paid someone to fly around one of those aeroplane streamers. _John and Mrs. H, I'm n_ _ot dead, S-_ fucking _-H_.”

 

“John, look –” Sherlock says, and he's actually half-smiling, because it's John, in the flesh, with his voice and his stupid jokes and his deadpan face, and it's been _ten months_ since Sherlock has talked to him with any chance of a response – but John's face shutters.

 

“God,” John says, and looks at him, sad now rather than angry. “You never trusted me, did you?”

 

Sherlock is so taken aback by the statement that he doesn't know how to respond. There is only one person he trusts, trusts so deeply his instincts sometimes protest, trusts without reservations, without the barest shred of self-preservation, but John must not know this, because he looks at Sherlock with a tense, tight face, all trace of wry humour gone. He gives Sherlock some time to respond, but the seconds slip away, and Sherlock isn't able to recover enough to express that John is all wrong, of course he's all wrong, _he's an idiot,_ of course Sherlock trusts John, it's ludicrous to even suggest otherwise, but it was _imperative_ that –

 

John is nodding, as though seeing something confirmed that he was expecting. “Yeah,” he says. “You just aren't capable of sharing anything. I already knew that.” He huffs a chuckle, bitter. “You could have told us yourself that you weren't dead, at least. Letting _Mycroft_ do that, Sherlock? Really?”

 

John looks at Sherlock with distaste, and drains his cup of coffee. “You know, Mrs. Hudson cried for an hour when she heard you were alive. And who was there to comfort her? Mycroft. Sodding _Mycroft_. Mycroft Holmes did a better job of comforting Mrs. Hudson than you did, just because he was there.” He gets to his feet, digs through his pockets for his wallet and fishes out the change for the coffee.

 

“You were there,” Sherlock says as he watches John count coins.

 

John puts the money on the table. “That,” he says, and his voice is colder than Sherlock has ever heard it be, “isn't the point at all.”

 

He leaves, gait even and restrained. The woman at the table next to them, the one who smiled at John before, catches Sherlock's eye and gives him the smallest of smiles and an almost apologetic shrug, as if communicating some sort of shared feeling. It shocks through Sherlock nastily, like a touch to an exposed nerve. A sudden fury flares in him, and he snaps at her: “Whoever it is you're sleeping with, you should know they've infected you with herpes,” and gets up before she can respond.

 

When he glances back at her through the window of the café, she's still looking at him, and still wearing an expression of gentle, pitying sympathy. It makes him want to break something.

 

“Oh dear,” Mrs. Hudson says, when he comes into her kitchen. “Let me get the kettle on.”

 

 

 

**June 2013**

 

Sherlock spends the anniversary of his faked death trying very, very hard not to think about what John is doing, and if John felt anything, or thought of anything when he looked at the calendar this morning.

 

*

 

John, still wearing a lingering smile from his conversation with Molly, is holding a wine glass filled with orange juice. His frame stiffens slightly when Sherlock sidles over to come stand next to him, but he doesn't respond otherwise.

 

“Hello,” Sherlock says.

 

“Hi,” John responds neutrally, and takes a small sip of juice. Sherlock fights down the urge to tell John how ridiculous it looks to drink juice out of a wine glass.

 

They stand side by side for a long moment, surveying the room. One of the head doctors, with heavy glasses and a side parting, is telling a story that has several of the nurses around him laughing. Two of the surgeons are gesturing about something in a corner, probably talking about one of their cases, judging by the graveness of their features. The head neurosurgeon stands to the left, surrounded by her team, shoulders heavy with the weight of impending retirement and a clear affection for her people. Someone's draped her shoulders with bits of red string: left-overs from the Christmas party. Over at the table with the drinks, Molly, blushing, is talking to one of the nurses and fiddling with her hair.

 

“Molly thinks that nurse is flirting with her,” Sherlock remarks, watching as Molly spills wine over her dress as she brings the glass up to her lips with a little too much enthusiasm.

 

“Maybe he is,” John says, and it almost sounds like a challenge.

 

There are at least four reasons why he is not, but Sherlock holds them back. “Did she invite you?” he asks instead.

 

“Yes,” John confirms tightly. “And I don't need to hear it, so save it.”

 

Sherlock glances sideways. John's profile is so familiar next to him that it sets off a pang of affection in the pit of his stomach. But John's mouth is tight, and he won't turn to meet Sherlock's eye.

 

“Why are you here, anyway?” John finally asks.

 

“Stamford,” Sherlock says.

 

“Mike always invites you, to every Bart's reception, even the ones you have absolutely nothing to do with,” John says. “You never come.”

 

“I did this time.”

 

“Right,” John says, and takes another sip of juice.

 

“John,” Sherlock says, low and careful. “I didn't say any of the things I wanted to say at Speedy's.”

 

John turns towards him a fraction. His face is guarded, but also waiting, his eyebrows raised. Sherlock understands it for the chance it is, and suddenly feels dread blooming in his insides.

 

“I didn't...” he attempts, then straightens a little. “What you said, in there, that wasn't... true,” he finally manages.

 

John is still looking at him, with the same, questioning expression on his face. After a few beats, he blinks. “Oh,” he says. “Was that it?”

 

Sherlock wishes, with a very sudden and urgent desire, for a cigarette. The light in the room is hospital-bright and matter-of-fact, designed to bring every wound to light.

 

John chuckles bitterly. He's shaking his head a little to himself. “I've stopped expecting... but of course you'd manage to do even worse.”

 

Sherlock takes his chances, and grabs John's arm. “John, I'm sorry,” he says, the words falling over each other, too fast, too casual, not at all doing any justice to the persistent ache inside him, the dull painful throb of _missing_ John, of _wanting_ John with him all of this time.

 

John is silent for a long moment, and then knocks back his orange juice as though it's a shot of tequila. He licks his wet lips.

 

“So am I,” he says. “I'm going to need a bit more time, Sherlock.”

 

“How long,” Sherlock automatically says, not even capable of making it a question.

 

“I don't know,” John says.

 

The silence stretches. The murmur of the reception is a steady buzz. Sherlock feels numb.

 

“I'm getting another drink,” John says, and leaves Sherlock where he's standing. Sherlock follows him with his eyes; John's walk is steady, the hand that isn't holding his empty glass balled into a fist. Molly, at the drinks table, leans into him slightly and asks him something; John's shoulders heighten with tension as he replies, and Sherlock feels vaguely ill when he catches Molly's look at him, stricken and doubtful.

 

Outside, Sherlock crushes his cigarette in his trembling fingers before he manages to bring it to his lips. He lets it drop to the pavement, and watches as the wind aimlessly pushes it further a few feet, before losing interest and leaving it in a shallow puddle.

 

 

 

**August 2013**

 

“Leave me alone,” John says two weeks later, looking so, so tired as he comes out of the clinic entrance.

 

“I can't,” Sherlock says, and reaches out almost blindly and catches John's arm. He registers John's look of fleeting alarm before he's pulling him in and wrapping his arms around John's shoulders.

 

John is warm, smells vaguely of talcum powder and latex gloves and the new sweat of the warm summer day, and is stiff as a board in Sherlock's arms. The shape of his body is firm and unfamiliar against Sherlock's. It occurs to Sherlock that they're exquisitely mismatched, that John's hair is at exactly the right height for Sherlock to press his mouth against without even trying, that John's head fits into his shoulder quite wonderfully.

 

John squirms a little, and then awkwardly brings up an arm and pats Sherlock on the back, twice.

 

“Um, okay,” he says, clearly surprised, when Sherlock withdraws a little, keeping his hands on John's shoulder. Their faces are still close, and when John licks his lips, Sherlock's eyes click down to his mouth involuntarily. John is so near, so warm, and everything in Sherlock flares hotly with the sudden closeness, and he _wants_ , he has wanted for _so_ _long_ – and it would be so easy, like this –

 

John makes a small, bewildered sound. Sherlock lets him go as if burnt, and takes a step backwards. They stare at each other for a long moment, Sherlock feeling his insides crumble slowly and fall away into an infinite drop. John's jaw is slack with surprise, his eyes widening with an increasing, terrible knowledge. Stupid. _Stupid._

 

Sherlock casts around for something to say, anything, and comes up empty. The inside of his skull is buzzing.

 

“Sherlock...” John begins, and Sherlock shakes his head, because he can't let this happen, he can't let John talk to him in that way, shock turning into gentleness, into _pity_. It's worse than anything he can imagine, worse than anger, worse than not getting to see John at all. It's disgusting, and he can't let it.

 

“I'm sorry,” he says. “That's – all I came here to say. I'll leave you alone.”

 

“Sherlock, wait, you –” John says, looking a little dazed, but Sherlock turns and all but runs away, because he _cannot_ let John finish that sentence, it can't be allowed.

 

*

 

Sherlock's phone beeps about twenty minutes after he leaves John in front of the clinic.

 

Without checking the message, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and drops it in the nearest public bin.

 

Later he rather regrets it, but Mrs. Hudson pats his hand as he sits at her table and drinks her tea and ignores the biscuits and looks at the strings of pale roses printed on her wallpaper. For the first time since he came back, she seems relaxed around him, chattering about Mrs. Turner and her sister and the promotions at Tesco. He knows she's doing it at least partly for his benefit, to give him something to be annoyed by.

 

As he sits there it even feels like it's enough, and he thinks that he'll be fine, like this, just going from moment to moment to moment.

 

*

 

Five days later, Sherlock buys a new phone. He adds Mrs. Hudson's landline to the contact list, Lestrade's professional number, and from memory, John's number. He tries very hard not to think about why there is really no practical use for that anymore, and suffers a moment of intense frustration when he can't banish the thought to a dark disused corner of his mind palace.

 

He changes the contact info on his website. While there, he spends a while looking at the sad state of his case notes. He forces himself not to look at John's blog, and succeeds. He eats, when he remembers to. He lets Mrs. Hudson scold him for being too thin. He texts Lestrade. Lestrade texts back, sounding terse but willing. He sleeps, in short bouts. He deletes Mycroft's text requesting to kindly keep him updated about further changes of contact means.

 

After three days, his phone trills, and he spends a curiously blank moment staring at the words _John Watson_ on the screen.

 

 

 

_What do you think your doing?_

_I thought something had happened_

_J_

 

 

_Don't even say it. I meant you're_

_J_

 

 

_Grab lunch?_

_J_

 

 

Sherlock thumbs back and forth through the messages a few times, and finally gets his shaky fingers to work.

 

 

_Threw my phone into a bin._

_Thought you said no one_

_reads my website. Yes._

_SH_

 

 

_Well I do. And of course_

_you did_

_J_

 

 

_Right. Cafe across the clinic,_

_tomorrow, 12. If that works_

_J_

 

 

_That works._

_SH_

 

_*_

 

John doesn't say many of the things Sherlock had expected, and some of the things he had not.

 

“I'm not really angry anymore,” he says, for starters.

 

“I know you're in love with me,” he doesn't say at all, like it never even happened, and Sherlock didn't helplessly watch the knowledge of it fill John's eyes.

 

“Just... y'know. Let me know if you want to talk, or... whatever it is you do. And we'll just... see,” he says, haltingly, and pushes two packets of sugar across the table for Sherlock's coffee.

 

“How many secrets do you even _have_ , you prick?” he doesn't ask, contrary to Sherlock's expectations.

 

“You're not that different,” he does say, and he _doesn't_ say: “But I am.”

 

 

 

**September 2013**

 

“Good to see you, John.” Lestrade smiles briefly at John over the rim of his plastic cup of coffee.

 

John's answering smile is genuine. “Happy to be back,” he says. “Though I suspect that makes me a bit touched in the head.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Lestrade says, and his eyes click over to Sherlock for a second. “I s'pose most of us here are.”

 

“Now that you've both observed the proper social niceties,” Sherlock says impatiently, “where's the body, Lestrade?”

 

Lestrade grins openly. It makes him look younger, less exhausted. “You must've missed him, John. God knows I did.”

 

Sherlock chances a glance at John. John is looking at him too, and gives him a closed-mouthed, tight-lipped smile, and looks away.

 

Lestrade, oblivious, finishes his coffee, and indicates for them to follow him.

 

 

 

**November 2013**

 

It takes Sherlock a while to start to think that John _looks_ at him. Of course, John has always looked at him, has always been fascinated by him, has always been lavish with his expressions of admiration. But it – it _seems_ different, the way he looks at Sherlock now, with a thoughtful, almost curious expression about him, as though he's seeing something new.

 

Sherlock tells himself, standing in the living room of his flat devoid of John, to stop seeing things that aren't there.

 

 

 

**Christmas 2013**

 

Mrs. Hudson hands John far too many glasses of wine and spends most of the evening looking at John as though _he's_ the one who's returned from the dead, moist-eyed, smiling. Sherlock finds it hard to mind, all the more so because John grows increasingly soft and flushed and laughing as the hours wear on, and he sits on the sofa like it's _his_ : shoes off, socked feet resting on the coffee table.

 

Mrs. Hudson and John fill most of the evening talking idly and playing board games from the eighties, and Sherlock spends most of it behind his laptop, doing little, mostly just observing them on the sofa. Their aimless chatter doesn't even annoy him, in that way he could always bear certain things from both of them he never could from anyone else. John's tipsy and relaxed, and it looks right, the way he sits there.

 

“I'll do it,” Sherlock speaks up when it nears eleven, and Mrs. Hudson starts collecting the glasses for the washing-up – he can tell she's exhausted and that her hip is paining her.

 

She tuts, face soft. “Oh, Sherlock, if you promise not to just leave them there.”

 

“I promise,” he says, and answers her grateful look with a smile.

 

“Don't get up,” she says to John, and gives him a little pat on his leg. “Behave,” she tells them at the door, with a smile, and shuffles down the stairs.

 

John stretches, yawning. “She seems happy to have you back.”

 

Sherlock glances at him over the screen of his laptop. “She's happy to have you back, too.”

 

John nods a little, smiling a small smile. “Thanks for inviting me.”

 

“Thanks for coming.”

 

They look at each other for a long moment. John seems to realise how sincere it is and inclines his head a little in acknowledgement. Sherlock, very acutely, realises he doesn't want John to leave. John, for his part, doesn't seem in a hurry to go either. In fact, he's looking at Sherlock with focused eyes, as though he's expecting something from him. Sherlock clicks his laptop shut, not quite sure what to do. John's gaze makes him feel warm, in an almost uncomfortable way.

 

“More wine?” he asks, to give himself something to do.

 

John narrows his eyes at his empty glass as if sizing it up. “Might've had a couple too many already,” he says, “but sure, why not.”

 

Sherlock pours them both a glass, and when he hands John his, John takes it almost clumsily, wrapping his hand loosely around Sherlock's and awkwardly tugging the glass from his grip. It's a strange touch, that lasts far too long to be accidental. Sherlock blinks, and tries to ignore the warm rush of – something – that fills up his chest at the way John looks at him, eyes bright. To get it under control, he brings his glass to his mouth and misjudges the gulp he takes, so much he has to stifle a cough.

 

There is a long moment of silence, and then they start talking at the same time. “Sherlock –” John says, while Sherlock says “Lestrade called –”

 

John quirks an amused eyebrow, and Sherlock frowns a little.

 

“This is no time to talk about work,” John says, and then laughs, his usual dry chuckle a touch deeper and looser because of the alcohol. “Though I realise you probably don't know that.”

 

“I –” Sherlock begins, but falters and falls silent when John turns towards him and places a very deliberate, very steady hand on his upper arm. The warmth of it through his shirt is startling. He automatically turns his body more towards John, towards the source of that heat.

 

“It's like you're immune to sexual tension or something,” John says wonderingly, looking at his hand on Sherlock's arm. “Anyone else would have shagged ages ago. These past few weeks – it's been – every time you said something I just wanted to... and you're always _staring at me_ , God, you need to stop doing that.”

 

“I've always done that,” Sherlock points out, before it registers fully what John is saying and his breath hitches when John slides his hand up to his shoulder and then lets it rest there, fingertips lightly touching Sherlock's neck.

 

“Yeah,” John says. “Exactly.”

 

Sherlock takes a deep breath. It feels like getting ready to take a plunge into water lined with deadly rocks hidden from sight – thrilling, and with a dark, tantalising edge of fear.

 

“I know that you... and I've been thinking about it too, so much,” John breathes, and then finally pushes forward and touches his mouth to Sherlock's. His breath is slightly wine-sour, and Sherlock almost doesn't know what to do; he tangles a hand in John's jumper sleeve and otherwise just lets it happen, lets John press his mouth to his and lick a careful line against his lips.

 

John pulls back. His cheeks are a little flushed. “You all right?”

 

“Fine,” Sherlock says automatically, which doesn't even begin to express how it feels: like something dark and heady is bursting open inside of him that he'd kept tightly sealed all this time. As the shock recedes a little, the deep blooming feeling of it suddenly brings him to grab John by the shoulders and push their mouths back together clumsily, lacking the finesse of recent experience that John has, but licking his way into John's mouth with enough force of persuasion that John grabs him by the back of his neck and kisses back, hard.

 

“Mff,” John says against Sherlock's mouth, and they spend several long, frantic moments just pressing up against each other, tongues sliding against each other hotly, teeth occasionally clicking together, which has John stifling breathless laughter into the kiss. Sherlock can't bring himself to care much.

 

John groans when Sherlock's hands drop from his shoulders to his chest, and lower over the thick material of his jumper to his stomach.

 

“Shit – I'm – a little too drunk, Sherlock,” he says, breath already deliciously quick, “don't think I can really –”

 

Sherlock draws back, studying him intently. His heart pounds in his ears. “But you do want to,” he says – it's half a question, half a conclusion to the story he can read from John's body, his face.

 

“Yes,” John breathes.

 

Sherlock kisses him again, more cleanly this time. John matches him, kissing back without much hurry, more languidly than before. They break apart to catch their breath. “Think you'll still want to tomorrow, once you've sobered up?” Sherlock asks, and tucks a hand against the pulse point in John's throat.

 

“I'm pretty sure,” John says, voice hoarse.

 

Sherlock leans in and kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him.

 

*

 

In the morning, John doesn't reply for a long time to Sherlock's

 

_You're free to come over_

_whenever convenient._

_SH_

 

which takes over most of the tracks of Sherlock's mind with a dark, terrible feeling of foreboding that makes it hard to think about anything else. He takes a shower and dresses and fiddles with his microscope and checks the website and solves a case completely via e-mail, which doesn't improve his mood, and thinks about how maybe there was only one window of opportunity, only one, that he was only to get this one, single, unexpected chance, and he missed it.

 

Three hours after his initial text, his phone pings.

 

_Ok, got called in, lots_

_of boxing day accidents._

_Coming over_

_J_

 

Sherlock wonders for a moment how normal people do it, cope with all this, allow hope and uncertainty and fear of rejection into themselves, and how they don't just puncture after a time, like balloons that have been blown up and deflated one time too often.

 

*

 

John doesn't exactly look as eager as he did the night before – in fact it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he looks nervous – but when Sherlock steps over the threshold of his fear and takes John's face in his hands and kisses him, he sighs a little and leans in, nevertheless.

 

He insists on Sherlock's bedroom, and tugs the curtains closed, and even in the gloom of it he's clearly thinking things that Sherlock finds hard to read, but when Sherlock slides his own pants down over his hips on the bed, John still looks at him with something like the old familiar awe, and scoots forward to kiss him and run his fingers along the swelling line of his cock. John still lets out a sound that is very much like a moan when Sherlock shudders through his orgasm against John, spilling sticky and intimate between the close press of their bodies. He still shows Sherlock how he likes it, far more slowly than Sherlock does, long, lazy strokes that draw it out, and Sherlock is fascinated by how his face changes in the half-darkness as he gets closer and closer.

 

When John comes, he tangles his hands in Sherlock's hair and pulls on it, and muffles a “ _Sher -_ ” into Sherlock's shoulder.

 

He gets dressed with his back towards Sherlock, and is mostly silent as they have tea, which Sherlock awkwardly offered, wondering about what is the usual post-mutual-orgasm etiquette between people – most of his prior shared orgasms didn't require much etiquette, and John isn't saying much to go on.

 

But before he leaves, John puts a hand against Sherlock's upper arm and squeezes it, tipping his head up to look Sherlock in the eye.

 

“See you soon,” he says. “Thanks for the tea.”

 

Sherlock knows when to take what he can get.

 

 

 

**January 2014**

 

“I'm so glad to see you two back as you were,” titters Mrs. Hudson one evening, cutting a slice of cake for John at the table. “He's been worse than ever without you here, John. He's not fit to be alone, when it comes down to it. No, no, don't get up, I'll bring it over to you.”

 

John, who had moved away from the contact of Sherlock's thigh against his when Mrs. Hudson had come up, smiles at her, and accepts the plate she brings over to the sofa.

 

“I'm only visiting, Mrs. H., I don't live here anymore,” he gently reminds her.

 

Sherlock looks at him, and remembers how forty minutes ago John's hands had been a soft weight on his head, suggesting but not commanding the pace, letting Sherlock take in his cock a bit more with each bob of his head, and how he'd gone quiet and shuddery when Sherlock had experimentally curled his tongue around the head of it. Sherlock can still taste him when he licks his lips, but he doesn't really know what it means that John sends him a dark glance, as though blaming him for something.

 

“Oh, well, of course,” Mrs. Hudson says, slightly deflated. “Did you want a piece, Sherlock?”

 

 

 

**February 2014**

 

“For Christ's sake, Sherlock,” John snaps, and twists away from the touch of Sherlock's hand sliding over his stomach.

 

“What?” Sherlock says as he sits back, immediately wary.

 

“I just want to watch QI, leave me alone.”

 

Sherlock scowls, a prickle of annoyance running up his spine. “Well, I'm sorry if I assumed that you coming over here to watch TV instead of doing that in your own perfectly adequate flat might have meant that you wanted to –”

 

“Stop – talking,” John says, and his words are lined with such menace that Sherlock automatically shuts up. John re-focuses on the telly, but Sherlock can tell he's hardly paying attention; his eyes are hard and his jaw is working. After a couple of extremely tense minutes, Sherlock gets up from the sofa and moves over to his microscope on the kitchen table. It takes him over twenty seconds to remember which of the slides he'd been working on before John came in.

 

John finishes QI, switches off the television, and leaves without saying goodnight.

 

*

 

There is no word from John for a maddening nine days. Sherlock solves a Met case with such ferocity that Lestrade asks him afterwards if he's okay, seeming confused at his own question. Sherlock shocks himself even more by snapping back something that includes John's name, and later wonders how he got there, sitting on a pub stool with Lestrade while Lestrade tips back his pint in big gulps and patiently says things like _some things take time, Sherlock._

 

When he gets home, he literally bashes his head against the wall, and endures with grim satisfaction Mrs. Hudson's scandalised tutting as she sticks a plaster on the small wound on his forehead.

 

*

 

Then:

 

_Are you in tonight?_

_J_

 

John brings over pork curry and naan that sits uneaten on the coffee table next to his unspoken apology as Sherlock looks down at his grey-blond head and shivers at the first, tentative touches of John's tongue to his cock, feeling like the marrow of his bones itself has turned liquid and hot and melting.

 

For some reason he can't help but laugh a little when he comes; it's almost a surprise, sneaking up on him nearly unannounced, and he can hardly warn John off, which means that when John looks up at him with wide, unreadable eyes when it's over there is a line of Sherlock's come spattered on his cheek. Sherlock, without thinking, smears his thumb through it. It seems to send a jolt of something through John, and when he comes up to kiss Sherlock it's hard and sharp, teeth-lined. “Don't,” John breathes when he breaks the kiss, but then rubs his sticky cheek against Sherlock's, and arches forward when Sherlock brings down a hand to palm at his erection.

 

Sherlock doesn't know what it means. He really, really doesn't.

 

 

 

**March 2014**

 

“We do have a witness,” Lestrade tells them, “but she doesn't make much sense. Doesn't _appear_ to be in shock, but keeps saying it was a monster. Dark, shaggy, hairy, wolf-like – you name it. Werewolves, or something. Security tape footage doesn't show anyone who hasn't been accounted for entering or leaving the building; either someone's edited it out pretty expertly or that bloke was a contortionist who stabbed himself in the back. It's pretty puzzling.”

 

“For you, maybe,” Sherlock says, smirking with the anticipation of a solid riddle. “We'll need to speak to this witness, of course.”

 

“She's just in the other room,” Lestrade says, indicating the door with his coffee spoon.

 

The woman is calm and clever and clearly not in shock, though shaken. She also looks at John with an appreciating, assessing look that Sherlock isn't sure what to do with, because it sets off a completely illogical feeling of possessiveness inside him, and he hates her for it, for that look of calm interest in John.

 

When he has what he needs from her and gets up to leave, John hangs back. Sherlock only notices it when he's back beside Lestrade and John isn't with him.

 

When John does come out of the room, his posture is very straight and he's wearing a small smile. When Sherlock meets his eye, he raises his eyebrows a fraction, clearly communicating _Problem?_

 

Sherlock doesn't know quite what it is inside him that makes him want to grab John by the lapels and shake him, and shake him, and kiss him, and then shake him some more.

 

*

 

It can't be that serious, Sherlock supposes, if John still comes to Baker Street after another date with her instead of going home to his own flat, and slides his hands up Sherlock's nape into his hair and kisses him, open-mouthed and filthy.

 

It can't be that serious if John watches Sherlock's face closely as he pushes a finger into him, and bites his lip as Sherlock keens and presses his hips back against it, working himself open fraction by fraction on John's hand.

 

“You're so sensitive,” John says, sounding awed, and presses the pad of his finger upwards, grazing Sherlock's prostate.

 

“I – ah – I can come just from this,” Sherlock groans, breath coming quick, “if you keep it up long enough.”

 

It can't be that serious if John looks up at him, eyes dark with lust, and says “ _Jesus,_ ” as though Sherlock is some sort of revelation, a miracle, a wonder.

 

*

 

It isn't that serious, and John simply shrugs when Sherlock raises a quizzical eyebrow when he comes in, and hangs his coat, slick with rain, onto the hanger that for all intents and purposes is his.

 

“No need to tell me what happened,” he says, tersely, “I was there. Have any beer in?”

 

 

 

**May 2014**

 

“You should move back in,” Sherlock says in the dark.

 

John huffs a laugh next to him, his arm loose and heavy over Sherlock's chest. “Just after an orgasm is maybe not the best time to discuss things like that,” he murmurs.

 

“It's a perfectly suitable time,” Sherlock says. “Besides, it's only logical. It's clear your flat is less financially convenient for you while far less spacious or comfortable than this one. Baker Street is closer to the clinic. You're here plenty of the time as it is. Mrs. Hudson would be thrilled to have you back here. It makes perfect sense.”

 

“It makes perfect sense,” John repeats vaguely. Sherlock can feel him rolling over onto his back, away from Sherlock.

 

Sherlock counts the seconds as they slip past in the near-perfect darkness of his bedroom deep in the night. When he gets to twenty, he puts out a hand and feels John jump slightly when it lands on the soft part of his stomach. Sherlock lays it there, palm down, fingers spread, and notes the movement of John's breath and the warmth of his skin.

 

“I'd like you to,” he finally says, low, quiet, wondering if he's pushing the limit, the limit that they never talk about and that sometimes seems to change without warning.

 

John puts his own hand on top of Sherlock's, lightly locking their fingers together. Like this, in the dark, when they can't see each other clearly, the boundaries are less sharp.

 

“Yeah,” John says, and lets out a long, soft breath. “You're right, it does make sense.”

 

*

 

Mrs. Hudson makes lemon zest cake because John likes it, and they eat it together after John finishes putting away all of his boxes and occasionally calling down to Sherlock that he _could use a hand, you know_ , but clearly not really bothered that Sherlock mostly ignores him and lets him tinker about in his old bedroom on his own.

 

Mrs. Hudson looks so delighted to have them here together that Sherlock can't resist the urge to grab John gently by the back of his neck and squeeze the firm muscle there.

 

John looks back at him, and smiles, and he looks so happy that Sherlock curiously feels as though something is squeezing him too, something somewhere in his chest.

 

*

 

“Oh God,” John groans, gripping Sherlock's hips as Sherlock slowly lowers himself onto John's cock, gritting his teeth around the exquisite burn of the stretch. “ _Fuck_ , that's so good – Sherlock –”

 

Sherlock steadies himself with a hand against the headboard as his body comes flush against John's, the tickle of John's pubic hair against his arse, the skin of his sides hot and slightly sweaty under Sherlock's thighs. John is quiet beneath him, not moving, breathing already a little ragged. “Give me – a minute,” Sherlock says hoarsely; it's been so long since he's done this, and the idea that it's _John_ makes him need to take a little break to get a grip on the whirring inside his head.

 

“Hey,” John says breathlessly, smoothing his hands over the skin of Sherlock's sides and down the outsides of his thighs, “it's okay. Take your time.”

 

Sherlock closes his eyes for a second – the blackness of the inside of his eyelids is more complete than the gloom of the bedroom, and when he opens them again he can make out John a bit better: the contours of his body, the light sheen of sweat on his face.

 

“John,” Sherlock says, voice low, and rolls his hips a little, experimentally – the movement makes John give a small, bitten-off moan. “I want – to switch on – the light,” Sherlock says, punctuating his words with careful movements of his hips.

 

John's hands squeeze his thighs more firmly at the friction, but he doesn't speak for a long moment.

 

“John,” Sherlock repeats.

 

“Yeah, I'm... fine,” John says, breathlessly, and removes one of his hands to reach out for the bedside table and switches the lamp on – the room is immediately bathed in the soft glow of it. John meets Sherlock's look with wide eyes.

 

Never taking his eyes off John, Sherlock sets the pace, grunting with the building exertion of it, thigh muscles burning deliciously as he grinds down on John's pubic bone, and watches with a new sort of fascination the way John's mouth falls open in soundless pleasure, and the way John doesn't look away at all, can take it all the way through.

 

*

 

Later that night, Sherlock runs his fingers through his shower-damp hair, kicks out his feet over the coffee table, and completely by accident catches John observing him from the kitchen, where he's making tea. John's eyes click down immediately when Sherlock intercepts his look, and he turns away. Sherlock shifts a little on the sofa, trying to swallow a vague sense of anxiety away.

 

 

 

**June 2014**

 

When they get home from the crime scene, Sherlock sets himself up with his violin in front of the window, brain already rushing over the details of the past hours.

 

“I'm tired,” John says from the hallway. “I'm going to try and get some sleep.”

 

“I could need you,” Sherlock says, and turns around to find John peering at him from the doorway.

 

“I really need to get a couple of hours,” John says, and there is a tightness to his frame that Sherlock easily reads as sleep deprivation. “You can always wake me up if something happens.”

 

“Okay, fine,” Sherlock says, a little unwillingly. He turns back around, shoulders his violin, and tunes out the sounds of John climbing the stairs to his room.

 

*

 

_Oakley St 86. Need_

_you here, now._

_SH_

 

 

_I really can't just_

_abandon my shift,_

_sorry, but tell me_

_about it later, ok?_

_Good luck_

_J_

 

*

 

When Sherlock finally makes it home, bursting with the after-sparks of adrenalin and looking forward to reconstructing the last few hours for John's benefit over some tea and Indian, he nearly runs into John at the top of the stairs.

 

“John!” Sherlock says, breaking into a grin. “You are going to wish you had quit your job, this case – it was –” He takes note of John's state of dress and falls silent. “Going somewhere?”

 

John looks surprised to see him. “Er, yeah, Mike rang. He wanted to catch up.”

 

“Oh,” Sherlock says. “I thought we could get some food.”

 

“I already ate, sorry,” John says. “I didn't know when you'd be getting home.” He doesn't immediately move.

 

Something deflates inside of Sherlock, and the happy buzz of the case simmers down and seeps away. Suddenly he feels tired. “Yes, okay,” he says, and frowns a little at himself, at the feeling of disappointment that replaces the glow of adrenalin inside him. He'd been looking forward to seeing John, to talk about the case and let the warmth of John's admiration and interest pull them together as it sometimes had, before – but he doesn't quite know how to say that without crossing the careful lines between them.

 

John smiles briefly. “I'll see you tomorrow.” He works his phone out of his pocket and looks at it for a long moment, then gently shoulders his way past Sherlock. “There's pasta in the fridge,” he calls up when he's almost downstairs, without turning around.

 

 

 

**July 2014**

 

After the case finally breaks, after the tearful gratitude of the client and the almost force-fed pints bought for them by the client's girlfriend, after the silent, tired cab ride, Sherlock leans in without much thought and tries to kiss John over the take-away box of pad thai between them on the sofa.

 

John freezes so completely that Sherlock automatically aborts the movement of his head before his mouth even meets John's. He draws back, slowly, eyebrows raised in question.

 

John looks like a caged animal, eyes wide, every line in his face tight. “I'm sorry,” he says, and brings up his hands, as if to deflect... something. It occurs to Sherlock that that something is probably him.

 

“Something wrong?” he asks, narrowing his eyes.

 

John scrubs his hands over his eyes, then fixes Sherlock with a steady look. “We need to stop doing this,” he says, evenly.

 

“This,” Sherlock repeats.

 

“Yeah, this.” John makes a vague gesture in Sherlock's direction.

 

“I see,” Sherlock says. “Breaking the unspoken 'let's not talk about it when we're not doing it' rule. Interesting.”

 

John breathes in noisily through his nose. “I want to stop.”

 

Sherlock is on his feet without really noticing it, and then stands awkwardly in front of the sofa, unsure of where his body wanted to take him. He opens his mouth, only to find that he can't find a single thing to say. It's like everything inside him has switched off.

 

John is watching him, and when he doesn't speak, shakes his head. “It's getting unhealthy, Sherlock.”

 

Sherlock scowls. “Don't pretend that you are in any way interested in _healthy_ , please. Spare me.”

 

John folds his arms over his chest, which serves to improve his shoulder posture to the military straightness he adopts when he's tense. “I spend pretty much my every waking minute with you.”

 

Sherlock frowns at him. “Problem? That's never bothered you before.”

 

“Well, it was different before, wasn't it?”

 

Sherlock looks down at him, trying to get a grip on John's expression. It _was_ different before, but really not that much; it has to be the sex, John's inability to acknowledge it when it's not happening, his guarded defensiveness over the state of his sexuality.

 

“What's this really about?” he finally dares to ask, eyes narrowed.

 

“Look, it's –” John licks his lips. “I met someone, okay. And it's different than before. So we... this has to stop.”

 

Sherlock blinks. How had he not...?

 

“It's still very new,” John is saying. “It's not even sure if anything will... come of it. But it made me realise that we need to have this conversation.” He clears his throat, and looks up at Sherlock with a steady gaze.

 

Sherlock looks back, his brain frantic, worrying at the pieces, until they click together – John's looks during the cases, long and assessing, the way he took his phone out of his pocket more often than usual, sometimes just holding it in his hand as though checking its weight, and the way he'd gone upstairs to sleep while Sherlock worked, shoulders straight and tight. Sherlock had seen all of this, and still he hadn't...

 

John is talking. “And this is – this thing between us, whatever it is, I don't know. It's not like it's...” It looks like he's rolling a word around in his mouth, trying it out. “... _permanent_ ,” he finally says. He has a look of resigned distaste on his face, something that Sherlock would associate with him glancing at the washing-up and seeing how far advanced some of the fungi already are. “Right?”

 

“Right,” Sherlock echoes, insides cold.

 

John smiles at him a little at that, tight-lipped. “I thought we should stop while... well. With minimal damage.”

 

“Minimal damage,” Sherlock repeats flatly. Inside his head, things have gone strangely quiet now; it's hard to do anything but just look at John as he speaks.

 

“Yeah,” John says. “We can just... go back to how things were.” He looks up into Sherlock's face; the eye contact is hard to bear for longer than a second, and Sherlock turns away to reach for his violin bow on the coffee table. He runs a finger over the bowstrings; one of the horse hairs has snapped and is curled up at one end.

 

When he looks back at John, John is frowning. “I thought you'd have figured out this was coming. We've been busy, but... you must have noticed that I've been avoiding – this,” he says, making another vague gesture between them.

 

“Of course I noticed,” Sherlock snaps, and, well, he _had_ , hadn't he? But now it turned out he'd completely misread the magnitude and meaning of it. There had been cases almost back to back for the last few weeks, and that had been enough to occupy his brain and assume that John was similarly engaged. He hadn't thought that it had meant anything _more_.

 

It feels like something bottomless has opened up inside him.

 

John seems to know this somehow, with the strange brand of knowledge that he has that Sherlock sometimes _doesn't_ have, because he looks at Sherlock with a doubtful, almost soft look in his eye. “Are you okay with this?” he asks.

 

“Yes, fine,” Sherlock says promptly, almost without meaning to.

 

John gives him a very small smile, one of those that Sherlock can very easily tell isn't really a smile. “Good, okay,” John says, clears his throat, and then glances at his watch. “I'm... glad we had this talk. I, erm, I'll be going.”

 

Sherlock says nothing, and after a second John gets up and moves around him towards the door. Sherlock can't stop his eyes from following him.

 

At the door, John makes a jerky movement, as though catching himself halfway through taking a step in Sherlock's direction. “Sherlock,” he says, “you know you're – we're mates, yeah? Nothing has to... you're my friend.”

 

“Yes, thank you, John,” Sherlock says crisply, slightly recovered, and re-focuses on the violin bow, sliding his thumb over the strings.

 

“Right,” John says. It's another long moment until he actually leaves. He closes the door behind him with more than his usual care.

 

Sherlock stands there for a second longer, caressing the bow. Then, he takes a breath and lifts his violin out of its case to put the familiar, friendly weight of it on his shoulder. “It's not like it's permanent,” Sherlock repeats to himself, quietly. _Right?_ Right. Of course. How could it ever have been. It was obvious.

 

He picks at one of the strings with his fingertip: a sharp, off-key pizzicato. He automatically starts twisting the corresponding peg to correct the sound, but then suddenly grows heavy with fatigue, and puts the violin back into its case, slowly, tenderly.

 

*

 

Sherlock almost wishes John would just say it when he goes out with her, when he stays over at hers, when he's fucked her all night and has made her breakfast and has had to rush to make it to work on time and has spent his entire shift thinking about her. Sherlock doesn't even expect John to act like it isn't big, or like it isn't important. That would be fine. He just wishes that John wouldn't feel the need to go out into the hallway when she texts, or hide smiles that are triggered by some private memory behind his hand.

 

Sherlock knows all of it anyway. Not being part of it, having to pretend he doesn't see it, is many times worse than being shown it from up close; now it sits there between them like a ghost, always present, and it makes everything John says to him sound tense and calculating, even when it isn't.

 

 

 

**September 2014**

 

It doesn't work out. John appears fine, though Sherlock is aware that he might not be seeing enough of John to know for sure. Despite the relationship ending, John carefully gets out of Sherlock's path in the flat, doesn't look him in the eye for longer than a maximum of three seconds, and is most uncomfortable when he finds himself inside the relatively cramped space of the kitchen together with Sherlock. During cases he is helpful and normal, and no one, not even Mrs. Hudson or Lestrade, seems to notice any change in him.

 

Sherlock does, because he watches.

 

And what he sees is: John is _terrified._

 

 

 

**November 2014**

 

John doesn't seem to even entertain the notion of moving out of 221B, which puzzles Sherlock. It's completely illogical for John to stay when even the barest brush of Sherlock's body against his makes him go rigid with tension.

 

They barely talk, apart from cases. John works a lot. Sherlock feels like something is happening that he doesn't understand, no matter how long he thinks about it, and it's a supremely uncomfortable and novel feeling.

 

He does the only thing he can think of: wait. (And hope, though he tells himself several times to stop.)

 

 

 

**December 2014**

 

When it does finally happen, it's clear right away.

 

John had come in half-frozen, flushed-cheeked with cold, and Sherlock had got off the couch at the sight of him and had started making him tea without comment. He'd been fancying a cup anyway.

 

“Sherlock,” John says quietly behind him, and when Sherlock turns, John is in the kitchen with him, his cold hands crammed deep into the pockets of his trousers. The way his jaw tenses when Sherlock fixes him with a quizzical look already says everything. “I'm – I've been a dick. And if you – I don't know – if you still –”

 

Sherlock steps forward and bends down to kiss John, and it's not at all complicated.

 

*

 

The day is coldly bright outside, and John doesn't draw the curtains. Sherlock chases the lingering chill out of John's skin with his hands and sees all of it, how John arches his back and his jaw goes slack as they thrust up against each other into the slick ring of Sherlock's fist, and how John shudders completely silently through his orgasm, face pressed hard into Sherlock's shoulder.

 

He stays like that for quite a while, arms tight around Sherlock's torso, and Sherlock isn't entirely sure what to do with that, so he just lets him, lightly running his hand up and down the skin of John's back, feeling strangely peaceful as his minds lazily picks up different thoughts to play with and discard again.

 

Finally, John lifts his face off Sherlock and breathes in hard through his nose.

 

“Okay,” he says, as though admitting defeat. “Okay.”

 

*

 

The next morning John comes banging down the stairs with a suitcase.

 

“I'm going to spend a couple of days with Harry,” he says in response to Sherlock's raised eyebrows. “Train leaves in forty-five minutes, have to hurry.”

 

“You can't stand Harry.”

 

John shrugs. “She's still my sister.”

 

“Fine,” Sherlock says nonchalantly, flapping a hand. “Whatever you think is necessary to deal with... your little crisis.”

 

John glowers at him, but without any real heat behind it. They both know they're just playing at it, at the parts that would normally be theirs. Even pretending to return to something like normality makes Sherlock feel as though he can finally breathe again.

 

Before John disappears down the stairs, he turns to Sherlock and says: “I'll try to be back before Christmas.”

 

Sherlock listens to him go, and brings his palms together under his chin.

 

 

 

**December 31** **st** **, 2014**

 

John comes home at four.

 

“Nice to see you're still alive,” Sherlock says mildly, without turning around, lifting his bow off his violin. The final note persists just a fraction of a second longer, a clear, transparent trill. “How was Harry?”

 

“Horrid,” John says.

 

“You managed for a surprising nine days.”

 

“She wasn't horrid all of the time.”

 

“Ah, yes. In the short interval between her first coffee and whiskey and her third I imagine she might be capable of civility.” Sherlock puts his violin down and turns around. John looks calm, which is reassuring. “Anything I should know?” Sherlock asks him, quieter.

 

John, who almost never initiates touch outside of foreplay, and who sometimes jumps when Sherlock puts an unassuming hand on him in passing, steps forward and touches all ten of his fingertips to the lapels of Sherlock's dressing gown. The light pressure of it sends a shiver of warmth down Sherlock's spine. He's missed John, in a straight-forward, impossible to ignore or misunderstand sort of way.

 

“I suppose I,” John begins, looking at his fingers instead of at Sherlock's face, then clears his throat. “... _underestimated_ the, erm, the intensity of. Of this. Of you.” He does look up at Sherlock then, and swallows visibly.

 

“You panicked,” Sherlock says. “I noticed.”

 

“Yeah,” John says. “I do that.”

 

“Not often for months on end, though.”

 

John smiles a little not-smile. “Never that you were around to see, no.”

 

Sherlock looks at him for a few seconds, and then flicks his eyes down John's body and up again, picking up the bits and pieces he can gather there – _slept badly on Harry's couch, hand-washed jumper because of lack of washer in Harry's apartment, nicked chin while shaving yesterday, used Harry's shampoo, sat behind glass with face turned towards sun for at least three hours_ –

 

John's palms make full contact with Sherlock's chest. “I've been a massive prick. Sorry.”

 

Sherlock feels almost faint with the relief of it, sitting like a warm liquid in the pit of his stomach. He takes a breath. “You'd like to be monogamous, which is fine with me, since I only sleep with you anyway and don't feel any desire to change that. You don't want anything else to change much, and you don't want to make a big deal out of telling anyone, though you'd probably say if anyone you care about asked. It means something to you to acknowledge it, to name it, even if it's just in private. Apology accepted.”

 

John huffs a laugh. “Thought that was coming.”

 

“You missed Christmas,” Sherlock tells him after a beat. “I should warn you Mrs. Hudson will want to force-feed you to make up for it.”

 

John smiles a real, sincere smile, and tightly grabs the fabric of Sherlock's dressing gown when Sherlock gives in to the impulse to cover that smile with his mouth.

 

 

 

**January 1** **st** **, 2015**

 

John groans a little and mumbles something unintelligible when Sherlock rolls over and hooks an arm over his body, restoring the closeness they'd lost during sleep. Sherlock's room is already bright with morning light, and there's the popping sounds of people firing off likely illegal fireworks not far away. Not much later, the urgent blare of a siren, which makes Sherlock roll his eyes. Idiots. John grunts a protest at the noise, but doesn't stir much otherwise.

 

It's not hard to fall asleep again, which takes Sherlock a little by surprise the next time he wakes up.

 

*

 

“Are you still all right?” Sherlock asks John carefully, after Mrs. Hudson has come up to wish them a happy New Year and has spent at least twenty minutes tutting over John and gently scolding him for missing Christmas at 221B.

 

John looks up at Sherlock from where he's sitting on the couch, staring at his half-eaten plate of Yorkshire pudding with the courage of the damned, and smiles so genuinely that it's almost as if a light has been switched on somewhere inside him. “Yes,” he says, puts the plate away and then, slowly, as though trying it out, puts out a hand and waits for Sherlock to take it, tugging him down into the sofa.

 

Sherlock looks sideways at him, half-amused, half-wary. John leans into him and tucks his face into the space between Sherlock's shoulder and his jaw.

 

“Why am I such an idiot?” he mutters, voice muffled.

 

“It does strain belief sometimes,” Sherlock hums, and wraps an arm around John's shoulder, almost embarrassed at the warm, deep flush of happiness that sets his insides alight.

 

 

 

**March 2015**

 

Sherlock catches John looking at him when he straightens up from the blood smear, clicking shut his pocket magnifying glass. It's a hard, hungry look, lined with intention – and Sherlock answers it completely, looking back straight at John, feeling a flint of anticipation spark in his stomach. One corner of John's mouth is smiling.

 

Lestrade frowns a little, looking between them. “Something I missed?”

 

“No more than the usual, Lestrade,” Sherlock says, not taking his eyes off John. “Don't worry.”

 

 

 

**May 2015**

 

“You are incredible,” John breathes in the cab as Sherlock sits, still thrumming with energy, mind jubilant as he turns the final pieces over again and find that they completely, _beautifully_ fit. “That was incredible.”

 

“What a case,” Sherlock all but crows, every neuron singing in euphoria.

 

“You're a fucking wonder. You're a fucking _miracle_ ,” John says, and his voice is so raw and thready Sherlock finally remembers to look over at him.

 

He blinks at the sight that meets him. “You're extremely aroused,” he says.

 

“Fuck yes,” John says, eyes dark with lust, “I've been hard ever since you started talking about Chechnya.”

 

“You have strange kinks, John,” Sherlock says, smiling, and lets John pull him in and lick his mouth and tug on his hair and suck on his neck until they're both panting with it. They're so wired by the time they get home they don't even argue with the cabbie when he charges them extra for spoiling the seats, even if they didn't.

 

 

 

**July 2015**

 

Sherlock, spread out on the couch, flicks away the newspaper that had been lying on his face and makes a long, hard sound of frustration. “I can't stand it any longer!”

 

“God, unwind a little, will you?” John's voice comes from where he's sitting in the armchair with a completely imbecilic novel that Sherlock knows will end with the protagonist's mother turning out to be the double-crossing spy and a whole lot of insipid dialogue with bad Russian accents written out quasi-phonetically.

 

“I can't, John. There's nothing. _Nothing._ ”

 

“It's only been four days since your last case,” John says, sounding patient in that way that means he's had just about enough.

 

“Four days of mind-melting boredom,” Sherlock groans. “I might as well be dead. I wouldn't know the difference.”

 

“I would,” John says almost mildly.

 

It makes Sherlock fall silent, but only for a minute. “You don't know what it's like, John. It's like every cell in my body is calling out for stimulation. I'll be in a vegetative state soon.”

 

“Sometimes I wonder how old you are.” John somehow manages to turn a page with a _pointed_ sound.

 

“I can feel myself mentally degenerating, yes. My brain is atrophying.” Sherlock puts his hands on his face and taps his fingers on his cheeks in a rapid, enervated rhythm. Everything inside him screams out for a diversion, for something, _anything_ –

 

“Read a book,” John suggests evenly. “Go for a walk. Finish that documentary you started watching last week before Lestrade called. Put together a bloody puzzle, I don't know. Or, hey, do the dishes.”

 

“All incredibly inadequate, and sure to only make it clearer how full of idiots the world is.”

 

“Doing the dishes reminds you of the world's number of idiots?” Sherlock can hear John snap his book shut without indicating the page – he must have caught on to how moronic it is. Better late than never.

 

“Everything does. There is not a moment's respite from the realisation of how stupid everyone is.” Sherlock presses his eyes shut, feeling as though every nerve in his body is whining dully, demanding attention.

 

John makes a clicking sound with his tongue. “If I suck your cock, will that make you shut up?”

 

Sherlock's eyes open. It almost feels as if his brain _sighs_ at the prospect, in anticipation of some relief. “Worth a try,” he says, and scrambles to untie the knot of his dressing gown, throws open the flaps of it, and waits.

 

When nothing has happened after a few moments, he turns his head to look at John – who is looking at him with his eyebrows raised high.

 

“I mean,” he amends, “that would be nice. John.”

 

John shakes his head, but half of his mouth is smiling, as though he can't help it. “Scoot up, then. I'm not sitting on my knees on the floor just so you can get serviced.”

 

John knows very well how to lick Sherlock so he won't come quickly – just letting the weight of his cock sit on his tongue, and alternating that with broad, long licks, without much sucking.

 

“God, thank you,” Sherlock groans when he wouldn't be able to say anymore how long John has had him in his mouth, and when the way the pleasure pools hotly in his groin starts to push everything else away, take over the fast-running tracks of his mind one by one. John keeps it up for a long time, until a different sort of frustration starts to burn inside of Sherlock, and he keeps trying to push his hips up, but John holds him down with his hands. Finally, just before it gets to be too much, John swallows him down as deeply as he can, and bobs his head, sucking hard on every upstroke, immediately igniting intense pleasure in Sherlock's gut. “Ngh,” Sherlock formulates intelligently, and manages “ _Thank you_ – I –” before he comes into John's mouth, one hand in John's hair, the other clenched tightly around the sofa's backrest.

 

John keeps him in his mouth, catching most of his come. He only pulls off after Sherlock goes soft in his mouth, aftershocks still sparking up his spine. “You're welcome,” he says throatily, wiping his lips. “Now please shut the fuck up.” He presses a soft kiss to Sherlock's hip.

 

“Yes,” Sherlock breathes, and pets John's hair with a lazy, heavy hand.

 

 

 

**September 2015**

 

“Don't even start,” John says, holding up a hand, “we booked this trip three months ago. You said you wanted to see Pompeii, remember? Look at all the bodies? Read the graffiti?”

 

Sherlock groans. “John, this case is _important_.”

 

John snorts. “Yesterday you said it was barely a two. You didn't even finish reading the e-mail. You just don't feel like getting off your couch.” He punctuates the _you_ and the _couch_ by jabbing his index finger at Sherlock. “You have absolutely nothing on. All you've been doing these past days is harassing Mrs. Hudson about Mr. Stephens – she practically begged me to get you out of here.”

 

“Well, she could be a bit more discreet,” Sherlock says tartly, and rolls his eyes at John's glare. “ _Holidaying_ together, John? Really? Like some sort of middle-aged married couple.”

 

“We _are_ a middle-aged couple, in case you hadn't noticed. And I took time off for this from the clinic. I'm ruddy well going, and I'm not going to Italy without you.”

 

Sherlock lets out a deep sigh, scrubs a hand through his hair, and says: “Oh God, _fine_. I'll go. Also, I'm 39 and you're 43. That hardly qualifies as middle-aged.”

 

“I'll just speak for myself then,” John says. “Being with you is almost certainly taking off twenty years of my life.”

 

“Nonsense,” Sherlock says with a yawn. “I keep you young of spirit.”

 

*

 

On the plane, Sherlock sits nearly folded in half against the seat in front of him, fidgets furiously for a good fifteen minutes, and eventually settles for pushing his knees up against John's legs, which earns him the blackest of glares that shows that John has been stewing in annoyance at his fumbling the entire time. Sherlock ignores it.

 

“John,” he says loudly, “the man in front of us is masturbating under his flight information sheet.”

 

John looks at him with the look of a man who realises he's made a terrible, terrible mistake.

 

*

 

“Sometimes you can even make out their expressions,” Sherlock says softly to John, peering down at one of the plaster casts of a Pompeiian in death throes, still a child, limbs twisted awkwardly. “It's _amazing_. They died nearly two thousand years ago.”

 

“Told you you'd like it,” John says, passing a hand over his sweaty brow and re-adjusting his sunglasses on his forehead. Sherlock doesn't even deny it, squatting down to get more on the level of the body. The cast looks rough, with none of the smoothness of a normal statue, but Sherlock realises with something of awe that this might be the closest he can ever come to studying a body that's seconds from death, knowing what's coming, working on complete instinct. Even if the data is strongly diluted, just a plaster imprint of what the bodies left behind in the ash as they decomposed, it still makes him want to reach out and touch a hand to the child's form. He restrains himself, remembering the rapid, angry syllables that one of the site overseers had spat out at him when he'd stepped over one of the separation lines and had thumbed curiously at an ancient fresco. His Italian is sufficient to know that it was an unconditional warning. He doesn't want to get thrown out – not from here.

 

“Boy's curling his arms around himself,” he says. “Protective gesture. Maybe he could hear the pyroclastic cloud coming, and woke up from that. He only had a few seconds – they'd have been pure fear, no time for anything else.”

 

“It's probably a she,” John says, peering at the small plaque on the wall of the villa. “They think these were women's quarters.”

 

“There's always something,” Sherlock says, and smiles to himself.

 

John steps up behind him. “Have I told you I like you in shorts?” he says affectionately, trailing a warm hand over Sherlock's curls.

 

“Yes, extensively,” Sherlock hums, arching up into the touch despite the fact that his hair sticks to his forehead in sweaty tendrils. “I'll let you tell me again when we get back to the hotel.”

 

*

 

“That's – that's – oh,” John says, as if surprised, when Sherlock scissors his fingers inside of him, and then stops talking, as Sherlock lays himself across his body and kisses his sounds away, swallowing them up, absorbing them into himself.

 

The hotel room smells of salt and clean sheets, and the sweat dries on their skin with the warm breeze from the open window.

 

*

 

Far out in the bay, it's possible to drift slowly, floating face-up with his eyes closed and his arms spread, and think about how death is such a small, easy thing, a turning point of not even a second, and then suddenly becomes irreversible and permanent – a _state of being_. He can think of no equivalent for it, apart from life, and his mind, lazy with sea water, jumps to the fullness of the space beneath his body, full of water and old ships and creatures watching him as he invades their territory. The sun shines hard on his face, while the rest of his body is cool from the sea, and it's like floating on an edge, a world above, a world beneath.

 

*

 

John lifts himself up on his elbows when Sherlock comes back from the shoreline, dripping water.

 

“Jesus, Sherlock, I could barely make out where you were anymore,” he says, frowning. “How far out did you even go?”

 

“I swam competitions when I was at uni,” Sherlock says drily, flopping belly down onto his towel. John makes a small sound of protest at the droplets Sherlock splashes onto him when he shakes the water out of his hair. “It got boring. Only so many ways to cross a swimming pool.”

 

“I thought you were a junkie at uni,” John says, clearly watching Sherlock's shoulders and enjoying whatever it is he sees there.

 

“I was a _recreational user_ , John,” Sherlock says, his voice muffled by the towel. “Besides, taking drugs is hardly a full-time occupation. I had to find other ways to keep busy.”

 

“Huh,” John says, “Mycroft always makes it sound like he had to drag you off to rehab every six months.”

 

“Patently untrue, and Mycroft's a tit,” Sherlock mumbles, without any real heat to it, and stretches languidly, shifting into the warmth of his towel and the sand beneath it. After a moment, he can hear John picking up his book from where it's lying on his belly and rifle through the pages.

 

Three hours later, John ruffles Sherlock's hair and laughs unabashedly at the way it stands stiffly upright with dried salt, and chuckles his way through Sherlock's hissed curses as he spreads after-sun lotion over the lobster-red of Sherlock's shoulders.

 

“You've got a handprint here,” John says, voice dancing with cruel, cruel mirth. “Guess I must've nodded off for a bit with my hand there.”

 

“Shut up and rub.”

 

*

 

“You've been doing great,” John hisses at him, “don't go and spoil it now.”

 

Sherlock grimaces at him, and drops his fork into his grilled sardines. “Spoil it? _Spoil it?_ John, he's fake-playing _Un' vero Italiano._ Fake. Playing. Playing along with a _tape_.”

 

“Why do you care? Why is this even a problem? Don't pick a fight with the hotel's pianist by telling him that – God knows what. Don't do that, is all I'm asking,” John says tightly, glancing round at the other guests in the restaurant, and takes a large gulp of his glass of wine.

 

“The problem is that it makes my brain shrink,” Sherlock says through gritted teeth, feeling the words rise in him like a tide, poisonous, rotting. “ _All of it_.”

 

“All of it?” John mirrors. He's calm in that tense way that means that Sherlock is treading on thin ice.

 

Sherlock tries to stop it, he does. He tries to do many things nowadays. “Boring people with their boring holidays and their boring _books_ to read on the boring _beach_ and their _boring miserable lives_ ,” he snaps, and then can't stand it anymore, the lack of air in the restaurant, the way the shrill notes of the tape behind the piano drill into his skull. He gets to his feet too quickly, bumping the table with his knees so John's knife clatters to the floor. “I'm going outside.” He doesn't wait for John's response.

 

Outside, he searches feverishly through his pockets and curses himself for not having a cigarette on him, and settles instead for watching the furious sun dilute in the sky as it drops down, turning the air an angry rust-colour.

 

*

 

John is in bed but clearly still awake when Sherlock comes back into their room. Sherlock takes off his clothes silently, not at all sure that he wants to be there. John doesn't speak; in the pale moonlight falling through the open window his outline, back towards Sherlock, is clear and sharp. The room smells like the sea.

 

Sherlock gets into bed, mind still itchy and scraped raw with irritation.

 

The silence is so silent it's loud. Sherlock breaks first. (That is usually how it goes.)

 

“Say it, then,” he mutters.

 

John shifts, and is silent for another long, stretching moment. “What you said. Is that really how you feel?” he finally says, voice hoarse with disuse.

 

Sherlock takes the time to think about it. “It makes my skin crawl,” he eventually manages to put into words, “how they just... float through life. All of them. Completely meaningless.”

 

“I don't give a fuck about the pianist or any of those other people,” John says, voice hard. “Do you really feel that way about _me_?”

 

Sherlock blinks at the ceiling. “I never mentioned you.”

 

“Boring books to read on the boring beach. Boring miserable lives,” John quotes. “I read a fucking book on the beach and you know it.”

 

Sherlock closes his eyes for a second. The moon-washed bedroom disappears, but nothing else does. “I didn't mean you.”

 

“Yes you did.”

 

Sherlock exhales, stomach tightening in annoyance. He forces himself to be silent.

 

John turns over and lifts his torso up on his arm. He looks down at Sherlock, backlit by the serene moon, face in darkness. “You've hated this entire trip,” he says evenly, not even framing it as a question.

 

“No,” Sherlock says.

 

“Yes,” John snaps. “I know you think all of this isn't _necessary_ , but I would've still expected you to tell me if –”

 

“I don't hate this,” Sherlock interrupts him, and closes his eyes again, because at the moment, he truly does. “And I didn't mean you.”

 

John goes quiet. Sherlock can _feel_ his sadness, slower and deeper than the anger. It used to thrill him, being able to read John that way – now sometimes he wishes he could turn it off.

 

“Then what did you mean?” John says softly, almost without inflection.

 

“It's,” Sherlock begins, has to try again. “I find it – hard,” he persists, “when you pretend to care about what other people think. It isn't real. Not from you.”

 

The mattress creaks with John's shifting weight, away from Sherlock, off the bed. Sherlock opens his eyes to find John standing at the window in his pants, back towards Sherlock in the fragile, glassy light. “Why shouldn't I care when you ruin my evening?” John says, voice tight, pulling on the syllables.

 

“It ruins your evening when people start to notice you,” Sherlock says sharply. “When they start to notice _us_. You can't stand that, so you want me to just act normal all the time. Just so no one will _see_.”

 

John turns. “It isn't about that.”

 

“Of course it is.”

 

“Christ,” John says, and rubs his eyes with his hands. “It _isn't_ , Sherlock. You know that I – that I'm _fine_ , that I'm – proud of you, and of the fact that we're here together, and that I...” He trails off. “I'm not ashamed of being seen with you.”

 

Sherlock looks at him, tries to read his face cast in darkness. It's hard. “Except when I do something that would disturb normal opinion,” he says.

 

“I just want to enjoy our holiday. When you get – _stroppy_ , it's –”

 

“Stroppy,” Sherlock repeats, the word cold in his mouth.

 

John breathes in through his nose. “It makes me feel like you're not interested. That I can never be enough reason for you to enjoy something. That it's never _enough_.”

 

Sherlock shakes his head, marvelling at the absurdity of it. John is the only person who has ever consistently been interesting, who is so impossible to solve completely that he keeps drawing Sherlock's attention back to him. “That's stupid,” he therefore says.

 

“Yeah, I guess it would be to you,” John says quietly.

 

Sherlock frowns, but finds that he doesn't really know how to fill the silence that follows. “Please come to bed,” he finally says, because that is what he wants most, now, in the weight of that moment.

 

John does, almost to Sherlock's surprise. He stays on his side of the bed, on his back.

 

“John, I am interested in you, it's – I really didn't mean you,” Sherlock tries one more time, feeling frustrated with the way the words don't express any of the truth of it. He moves closer to the mass of John's body under the sheet, and slides a hand over his chest, fingers carding through the smattering of hair there.

 

“Shut up,” John says wearily, but allows Sherlock to press himself to John's side, and frees the arm that's trapped between them to wrap it around Sherlock's back.

 

Sherlock waits for a while. John's breathing calms, his body growing relaxed against Sherlock's.

 

“Regret it yet?” Sherlock finally asks him, quiet in the sea-foam feeling of the night.

 

“Mmmno,” John says, after a moment. “You?”

 

Sherlock presses his mouth to the skin of John's shoulder, rough with scar and salty with sea and the day's sweat.

 

“No,” he says softly, and thinks, loudly, the _never_.

 

*

 

On the plane home, John dozes, nodding off and jerking awake a couple of times until he finally really falls asleep, his head drooping down onto Sherlock's shoulder in stages.

 

Sherlock holds his slumped and slightly uncomfortable pose for the entirety of the flight, carefully resting his cheek against John's hair.

 

 

 

**December 2015**

 

“What's this?” Sherlock says with half-distaste, peering at the cream-coloured envelope Lestrade had pressed into his hands.

 

“Invitation to the Met's New Year's reception in January,” Lestrade says, looking almost apologetic. “You know, because of the... becoming an official Yard consultant, and everything. They're trying hard to make you forget about how they treated you before, 's my guess.”

 

Sherlock rolls his eyes lightly, tears open the envelope with his thumb and shakes out the card inside.

 

_Sherlock Holmes plus one_ , it says in print, and then, in biro, in Lestrade's barely legible scrawl: _John Watson_

 

“You wrote that,” Sherlock says.

 

“Yeah.” Lestrade shrugs. “Thought it would be a bit stupid to give John one of his own. But I didn't want him to just be 'plus one'. 'Cause he's – he does a lot, right? And, since, you know, the two of you are...” At Sherlock's continued look, his expression grows a bit concerned. “But if, er, if you want to bring someone else, or he –”

 

Sherlock blinks. “No, it's – it's fine. Very good, um. Lestrade.” He slides the invitation back into its envelope. “Er. Thank you.”

 

Lestrade still looks confused, so Sherlock simply decides to leave.

 

“See you later, then,” Lestrade calls after him.

 

In the taxi, Sherlock smiles a little as he runs his thumb across the hard rim of the envelope in his pocket.

 

 

 

**February 2016**

 

John falls asleep after twenty minutes, during which Sherlock has already figured out that Luke and Leia are actually siblings, that the director is unhealthily obsessed with incestuous overtones, that the actor who plays Han Solo was drunk during most of his scenes, and that John's memory is either strongly distorted by the glowing idealism of the middle-aged for their adolescence or John really is just a very bad judge of cinematographic quality.

 

Sherlock gently untangles himself, careful not to disturb John's always-light sleep, pulls one of the blankets Mrs. Hudson gave them that Christmas over John, trails a soft hand over his sleep-relaxed brow, flicks off the TV and finally pulls on his coat.

 

He leaves a note on the coffee table: _Out for some air._

 

Regent's Park is less dull during the night, cold and very nearly quiet, if he tunes out the steady hum of traffic. He smokes three cigarettes, one after the other, a luxury for the senses that he saves for times like this, and watches the way the smoke seems to freeze into the still icy overhead of stars.

 

John texts him:

 

_Idiot. Don't think I won't kick you_

_out of bed if your feet are freezing._

_I'm offended you didn't finish the_

_film, by the way._

_J_

 

Sherlock pockets his phone with a small smile, and savours the frosty prickle of air in his lungs.

 

 

 

**May 2016**

 

“Not now, John,” Sherlock says half-irritably, twisting away slightly from the suggestive touch of John's lips to his neck, pressing his eyes closer to his microscope.

 

John draws back and breathes in loudly through his nose. “When, then?”

 

“I'm working.”

 

“You've been working for three weeks on end,” John says sharply, and walks away to drop himself into the sofa. “You're just tinkering with experiments now.”

 

Sherlock lifts his eyes off his microscope and looks at John, frowning. “There are time constraints on this, you know. It's important that I –”

 

“Yeah, I'm sure,” John grumbles, and reaches for the newspaper. “ _Incredibly_ important.”

 

Sherlock watches him for a moment, then rolls his eyes and looks back at the sample, gritting his teeth in annoyance.

 

*

 

“We should talk,” John's voice comes when Sherlock closes the bedroom door behind him.

 

“Why're you still awake?” Sherlock says, and starts undoing his buttons in the dark. “It's nearly four.”

 

“Because we should talk, and you're doing a bloody good job of not paying any attention to me during the day.” John clicks on his bedside lamp. He looks crinkled and discontent, and squints up at Sherlock as his eyes adjust to the sudden light.

 

“If this is about earlier,” Sherlock begins, steeling himself for a fight.

 

“Yeah, it is about earlier,” John cuts in, sitting up against the headboard, “and about a whole lot of other times recently.” He doesn't _look_ angry, which is reassuring.

 

Sherlock frowns as he slides his shirt off his shoulders. “You like it when we're busy.”

 

“I like being busy. I also don't mind when you're busy with things that don't involve me. What I _don't_ like is when you stop talking to me because you're busy.”

 

Sherlock folds up his shirt, puts it away, and flicks open the button on his trousers. “You're sexually frustrated,” he says.

 

John rolls his eyes. “Not really the point.”

 

“Definitely the point, as you only really got annoyed when I didn't want to have sex with you earlier.”

 

“I'll give you that,” John says, calmly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Yeah, I get a bit itchy when we haven't got off in a while together. But do you know why that is?”

 

“Primal urges,” Sherlock says, stepping out of his trousers.

 

John scowls at him openly. “Because, idiot, having sex makes me feel like we're doing something together that involves no one else. I can get off on my own just fine. But that's not as satisfying as it is with you, because it's nice to feel like we give enough of a toss to take the time to have sex together.”

 

Sherlock watches him for a second. “You know I _give a toss_.”

 

“Yeah, well,” John says, “the thing is – and I know it's different for you – something like that needs to be reaffirmed now and then for me. I'm just a normal bloke, Sherlock. I don't know how to read your mind.”

 

The implication that Sherlock _does_ makes him smile a little. John doesn't seem to know the difference between Sherlock being able to read a sequence of events or even the state of John's mood and actually understanding _why,_ or what John's reaction will be. He gets into bed, and turns on his side to watch John. “You feel... neglected.” It's half a guess.

 

“It certainly isn't very fun to feel like you'd rather look at fungal development for hours than have a conversation with me.”

 

“The fungal development is –”

 

“Important, yeah, I know.” John frowns a little. “I'm not saying you need to stop doing – whatever that thing is. I just want you to... you know. Remember that I live here too and that I...” He casts around for the right words. “...fancy you,” he finishes, a bit lamely.

 

Sherlock bites back a smile at that – it dissolves the chafing feeling of unease in his gut somewhat. He can see that John is right, in that John-way he has of being right about some things, but Sherlock also knows himself – knows how he can lose himself in riddles and zoom in so closely on a problem that everything else just fades out of existence. It used to be the only thing he lived for, and even if that is no longer the case it still makes him feel euphoric in a way that nothing else ever does. The problem is: it's a complete state, complete or not-at-all, that doesn't leave much room for other things, and what John is asking, he isn't sure if, he doesn't know if, he doubts if.

 

John reaches out and gently pushes his knuckles against Sherlock's jaw.

 

“I'll do my best,” Sherlock says quietly, and turns his head a little to lean into the touch.

 

 

 

**July 2016**

 

“Oh, yes, I'm almost – _almost_ – ah,” John groans, and grips Sherlock's hair so tightly it's painful-delicious, and Sherlock licks an obscenely wet stripe up to the head of his cock and takes the tip of it into his mouth again, sucking on it hard, sliding his fist up from the base to meet his lips. John makes a strangled sound, and his hips stutter, arching off the mattress as he starts to come. Sherlock lets John's cock head slip out from between his lips and wanks him through it, letting him jerk against Sherlock's mouth, striping his lips and cheeks with his come.

 

“God, that's –” John says, and then laughs breathlessly. “Fuck, I fucking – I _love you_ , so much, fuck,” he pants, his body relaxing, cock going soft in Sherlock's fist.

 

Sherlock freezes for a fraction of a second, something inside him suddenly sounding a loud and unexpected alarm.

 

John, apparently not noticing, tugs him up and lazily runs his fingers over Sherlock's mouth and jaw, skating through the slickness of his own come on Sherlock's skin. “God,” he breathes, smiling, then reaches out to the bedside table to pluck the flannel off it. He cleans Sherlock's face slowly, hands unsteady.

 

Suddenly he stops. “Are you okay?”

 

“I,” Sherlock says intelligently, and then finds himself at a loss, because inside of him there is still the steady pulse that says _danger, danger, danger_.

 

John drops his hand with the flannel, realisation changing his look. “What's the problem?” he asks, voice tightening at the edges. They look at each other for a long moment.

 

“You've – never said that before,” Sherlock says hoarsely.

 

John blinks. “No, I suppose I haven't,” he says, sounding a bit baffled. “But surely it isn't... _news_ to you, or...?”

 

“No,” Sherlock says, because it isn't, precisely; if the question had ever occurred to him he'd probably have accepted that there was a very high probability that yes, John loved him – John put up with things from Sherlock that no one in an uncompromised emotional state ever would, and this relationship had outlasted quite a few of John's previous ones already – but hearing it from John's mouth somehow makes his throat fill up with a deep, dark feeling of unsafety.

 

“Okay then,” John says, and brings up a hand to touch Sherlock's hair, frowning. “Then don't – don't worry, okay? There's really no reason to.”

 

Sherlock looks at him and feels very keenly the pressure of the expectation to say it back, and it's stupid, because it's not like John really adheres to those rules anyway, he likes to pretend that he does but Sherlock knows he doesn't most of the time, anyway they're just _words_ , and it's not like he doesn't feel it, like it doesn't tug at him when John does John-like things or when John isn't around at all or when he starts to talk to John and realises that he's gone out.

 

He takes a breath. “I'm fine,” he says, and smiles a quick smile at John that John, judging from his face, doesn't believe at all.

 

*

 

John watches him rather closely for the next days, as though he's waiting for Sherlock to do something unexpected.

 

Sherlock takes care to not look away when John catches his eye, and to kiss John at least once every day; John accepts these offerings with something of confusion.

 

 

 

**November 2016**

 

Sherlock doesn't know why the words feel like sharp stones in his throat, why they rub and clink together and chafe him raw on the inside, why they seem to steal his breath away every time he tries to get them out. John doesn't say them often, but now that he's started it does happen, bursting out of him at times when he looks at Sherlock with shining eyes and a soft mouth – and every time he seems to regret it, seems to want to take them back as Sherlock fumbles with the silence that follows them, and the light in John's eyes dims a bit, and he deflates slightly, as though Sherlock is draining him of something.

 

 

 

**March 2017**

 

In the cab home from the suspect interview, Sherlock surfaces out of his flashing thoughts for long enough to notice John studying him out of the corner of his eye. There is something heavy about John's posture these past days; something is so clearly wrong that it makes Sherlock hesitant to even speak to John for too long for fear of losing his focus. Sherlock does his best to stop the slow steady trickle of anxiety before it starts to blot out the clarity of his thoughts.

 

Priorities, he chides himself, _priorities_.

 

*

 

John receives a call that takes him outside of Lestrade's office just as Sherlock and Lestrade are going over the final details of the case, talking at each other excitedly, drawn together in the residual adrenalin of it.

 

When he comes back inside, it takes Lestrade raising an eyebrow before Sherlock remembers to look over at John. He's white as a sheet, hand clenched tightly around his phone.

 

“Okay, John?” Lestrade asks.

 

John looks at his phone. “That was Harry,” he says. “My mother just died.”

 

Lestrade lets his pen drop to his desk in the ringing moment of silence that follows. “Oh, mate – I'm sorry,” he says.

 

“What?” Sherlock finally manages, staring at John.

 

“Yeah, she – she'd gone in for a coronary artery bypass graft, but it... something happened, and it... went wrong. I need to talk to the doctors, and I need to – Christ, I need to...” He trails off, and looks at his phone as though it has the answers.

 

“Shit,” Lestrade swears softly. “I'm so sorry.”

 

“Yeah,” John says, and gives him a tight smile. “I'll be off.” He turns, and steps outside.

 

Sherlock shares a fraction of a look with Lestrade, and then he runs after John, catching up to him at the lifts.

 

“Do you want me to come with you?” he asks John, landing a hand on his shoulder.

 

John peers up at him, face tight. “No, it's fine, I know you still have plenty to wrap up with Lestrade here.”

 

Sherlock shakes his head. “But this is – so much more important,” he says, feeling a bit lost.

 

John huffs a dry, bitter laugh, and presses the lift button. “You know, I tried to tell you she was going in. Twice. You said _Later, John_. And then you said _I'm thinking, John._ ”

 

“I – oh,” Sherlock says, as the memory hits him. A very hard, very cold point is spreading in his chest. “John, I'm sorry, I didn't know.”

 

“No, you didn't,” John says softly. The lift doors slide open. “But you might've if you'd just listened to me for once.” He steps inside the lift, back rigid. “I'll see you at home.”

 

“What the hell are you still doing here?” exclaims Lestrade, when Sherlock steps back into his office, feeling numb.

 

*

 

Sherlock waits. He has John's portion of pho in the microwave, and a cup of tea with a dry teabag in it waiting. He, too, waits, and drums his fingers on his thighs, and waits, and tries to think of a way to fix this, and waits.

 

John texts him near midnight:

 

_Staying at Harry's, she's a bit_

_upset_

_J_

 

Taking his chances, Sherlock calls.

 

“Sherlock, I really don't have time,” John says as a greeting. He sounds tired.

 

“I just –” Sherlock tries, he does. “Do you need... anything?”

 

John laughs a little. The sound is hard to read over the phone. “I'll talk to you tomorrow,” he says, and rings off.

 

*

 

“You prick,” John says, but still moves forward into the embrace Sherlock offers him in as soon as he steps through the door the next afternoon.

 

“I'm sorry,” Sherlock says, and presses his mouth to the side of John's head, “I'm sorry.”

 

“I can't...” John says, and withdraws from the hug. His face is deeply lined, his eyes moist. “I can't talk to you about this now. Funeral's on Saturday, and we still need to arrange pretty much everything. I'm going to bed for a bit, Harry kept me up all night with her nonsense.”

 

He slips out of Sherlock's arms and disappears into the bedroom.

 

*

 

The March day is unseasonably warm, and John is even sweating a little in his black suit. Sherlock stands between him and Harry during the service, feeling somehow infected by the extraordinary tension in both their bodies, the way they both focus their stress in their clenched hands. Every time he sees them together he is struck by the family resemblance, especially in the way they carry the weight of their worry, which is something that he's never said to John, not even during their fiercest fights.

 

Afterwards, he accepts handshake after handshake after handshake with a growing feeling of being exposed, as though someone will, at any moment, notice the way John isn't really speaking to him and uncover him as a fraud, as not really part of the family at all. There is no extended family of John's that Sherlock has ever met. Their curious, gossipy scrutiny makes him uncomfortable.

 

He'd only met John's mother once; she had been brisk and friendly and mostly forgettable. John had gone to see her sometimes, always coming back looking vaguely guilty, and had never asked Sherlock to come; Sherlock's sure Judith Watson died without knowing about their relationship. That had never seemed that important before, but now that _Harry_ has spoken more words to Sherlock in the entire day than John has, it takes on an ominous edge.

 

He groans a little when he sees who's approaching him, and curses the fact that William Watson had been a very important figure in the restructuring of the Ministry of Defence into its current shape in 1964. _Surely I need to honour his widow, Sherlock_ , Mycroft had said pompously at the church doors, unperturbed by Sherlock's open hostility. Sherlock suspected more personal motives, as he was sure neither John nor Harry had thought to invite all of their late father's colleagues, especially not those who were more than half a generation younger.

 

“Ah, Sherlock,” Mycroft says delicately, in an impeccable black that looks just like his normal suit. Sherlock raises an eyebrow as a greeting. “My condolences.”

 

“You know perfectly well I only met her once,” Sherlock says, immediately annoyed.

 

“Still, it must hit rather close to home,” Mycroft says neutrally, and then leans in a fraction and tugs on Sherlock's tie.

 

“For God's sake, _leave off_ ,” Sherlock hisses, slapping the hand away. He loosens the knot again, just to annoy his brother. Mycroft straightens his own tie instead, supremely unruffled.

 

“So, is everything all right with John?” Mycroft watches him closely, and automatically Sherlock feels an urge to attack bubbling up under the thin, already cracking surface of his calm – Mycroft still has that effect on him, even now, the effect of shrinking him down to child-size and making him want to lash out just so he won't have to go into the defensive under the always-knowing look of his brother.

 

“He just buried his mother, Mycroft,” Sherlock sneers. “Obviously he's just _ecstatic_.”

 

“Yes, of course, I see,” Mycroft says mildly, and Sherlock doesn't like the shrewd spark in his eye at all. “If you need anything, you know where to find me,” he says as a goodbye, and walks away. He immediately strikes up a clearly informal, hearty conversation with one of John's uncles, and Sherlock grits his teeth.

 

*

 

It takes four days after the funeral for things to come to a head.

 

“It's always the same problem, isn't it? It's always you and the work and you just – _forget_ about me,” John snaps.

 

“You never tell me,” Sherlock says loudly, jabbing his index finger at John. “You only tell me when it's already too late and you've been stewing in it for weeks and there is no way for me to fix it anymore! You never let me try, you _always_ shut me out, you –”

 

“That's rich,” John says, shaking his head in disbelief. “I shut you out? Are we on the same fucking planet? You barely even look at me when you're working!”

 

Sherlock scrapes his hands through his curls. The tension of the entire week prickles under his skin and he realises that more than anything, he wants to leave. “You know that's –” He makes a noise of deep frustration and tightens his hands into fists in his hair. The words get stuck somewhere in his throat – and he doesn't know how to tell John how much he _tries_ , how many times he reminds himself of John when he can feel the details start to enlarge until they replace the larger picture, but how he just... slips, sometimes. Often.

 

“You've done some hurtful things, Sherlock, but this is the worst,” John is saying. “My _mum_ _died_ and you haven't been here for me at all. Even now, you're just trying to make excuses for yourself instead of giving a toss about how I feel.”

 

“I – didn't – know,” Sherlock says through gritted teeth.

 

“I fucking tried to tell you! You waved me away like some sort of –” John throws up his hands in frustration. “– _bug_.”

 

Sherlock grabs John's arm. “You knew _exactly_ who I was when you got into this,” he hisses, “so stop pretending like this is only my fault.”

 

John wrenches his arm free and glares deeply and darkly at Sherlock. “Yeah, it's my fucking fault as well,” he snaps, voice raising, “I shouldn't have expected from you that your priorities could ever change enough. I'm an idiot, you've always been right about that, at least!”

 

Sherlock looks at him. Something is rising in his throat, dark and hot; he tries to swallow it down again.

 

“I have seriously never met anyone so emotionally repressed,” John says.

 

“Have you ever met yourself?” Sherlock says hotly.

 

“Oh, fuck you,” John snarls, “ _I'm_ not the one who – who can't even fucking _say_ –” He cuts himself short, but the words ring out loud and clear anyway.

 

Sherlock feels like he's been slapped across the face. All of a sudden all he wants is to _hurt_ John, take everything away from him, hit him just as deeply. “And I'm not the one,” he hisses, “who is so self-hating about putting my cock up another man's arse that I'd rather let my mother _die_ thinking I was a sad, lonely bachelor than tell her about it.”

 

Something in John's face changes. The silence between them stretches for a long, oppressive moment. “Any other person... any _normal_ person would have... _long ago –_ ” John says, almost stuttering with anger.

 

“Because you're so normal, is that it, John?” Sherlock spats.

 

“At least I try to be!” John yells, spittle flecking Sherlock's face.

 

“Well, you completely _fail at it_!” Sherlock shouts the three final words so loudly John flinches away from him.

 

They stand looking at each other, breathing heavily, the abyss that's opening up between them deep and black and widening.

 

“Sod this,” John says, almost calm, “and sod you. I'm going out.”

 

*

 

Sherlock must, and does, entertain the possibility that on top of not being a very good person (which he knows), he is also not a very good person for John.

 

But John really isn't a very good person either, even if he hides it a lot better, and there honestly is no one who understands as many parts of Sherlock as John does, and no one who is capable of leaving alone the parts that he doesn't understand like John is.

 

Sherlock never believed that selflessness existed, and though he thinks about how there is a very real possibility that John could be happier without him, he also thinks about himself and knows that he'd never, ever be able to do it.

 

*

 

John comes back at around two in the morning. Sherlock can hear him, climbing the stairs with uneven footsteps, dropping his keys, cursing quietly. He waits for John to appear in the living room, feeling a slow-blooming fear spread its cold tentacles inside him, the last flushes of his anger seeping away quickly at the prospect of coming face to face with John.

 

“Ha,” John says when he comes in and catches sight of Sherlock waiting, as though it's funny. He takes off his coat without looking at Sherlock.

 

“Hey,” Sherlock tries.

 

John looks up at him. “You know, I was going to leave you to stew in it for a bit,” he says, sounding more or less normal. “Sleep at a friend's. See how that made me feel. See how that made _you_ feel.” He smiles one of his not-smiles. “Guess what I realised? I don't _have_ anyone in London to spend the night with when my partner is being a right bastard.”

 

Sherlock barely registers the 'bastard'; it's the 'partner', and the utterly normal way in which John says it, that makes something of hope spark inside of him.

 

“Stamford wouldn't mind,” he offers, not at all sure it's the right contribution.

 

John snorts. “You don't really know Mike at all if you think he'd be happy if I showed up at his door at one a.m. without warning.”

 

“Guess I don't know him then,” Sherlock says, uncomfortably aware of all the possible trap doors in this conversation. John's calm is a little unnerving, hard to read.

 

The silence between them stretches heavily. John is looking at Sherlock closely, jaw working.

 

“You didn't need to say that about my mother,” he finally says.

 

“No,” Sherlock agrees, because even if it had been true, he can accept that it was a low blow, something he used just to hurt John, to push at his pressure points.

 

John licks his lips. “Do you understand why I left?” he finally asks, and there is something steely in the words that tells Sherlock that this is a test of sorts.

 

“I think so,” he therefore says, careful not to sound – or be – too sure. “You've been feeling overlooked for quite a while, ever since the elephant tusk case I'd guess, and that feeling peaked when you –” He catches himself and rephrases it. “– when _I_ didn't pick up from you that you were worried about your mother and didn't give you any space to tell me. Of course when she then proceeded to die that made it worse.” John frowns deeply, and Sherlock realises that was probably insensitive, again. “And, er,” he tries to amend, “completely understandably you were very emotional and stressed over that.”

 

John lets out an audible breath, but doesn't speak.

 

So Sherlock continues: “And now you left because you were feeling extraordinarily angry with me and you were afraid you'd do something you might regret if you stayed here and let it escalate any further.” John dropping his eyes away from Sherlock for a second confirms this hypothesis. “And you probably wanted some time on your own to – to re-evaluate the, um.” Sherlock swallows. “The relationship.” Unease flares in his stomach at the vocalisation of it, at the fear spoken aloud.

 

John has a strange look in his eyes. “It's so weird how you seem to understand all of it, and you still –”

 

“It's a reconstruction post factum,” Sherlock says. “I don't... when it's happening, I never... it's not...”

 

John, appearing to take pity on him, saves him from having to finish the sentence. “Right.”

 

“John, I _am_ sorry,” Sherlock says after a long moment, increasingly desperate to bridge the gap between them, to puncture the heavy tension.

 

John seems to accept it, nodding vaguely. Then he says: “So you know why I went out. Do you know why I came back?”

 

The question throws Sherlock for a second. “Because – you said – you had nowhere else to go.”

 

John smiles, a tired, sad smile, but a smile. “No,” he says. “I realised that even if there had been someone I could stay with, I still only really wanted to come home and crawl into bed with you.”

 

Sherlock blinks. “Oh,” he says.

 

“God knows what's wrong with me,” John groans and passes a hand over his tired face. “But even after you had a go at my _dead mother_ I still just wanted to come back and make things right again.”

 

Sherlock, clumsy with relief, steps forward and wraps himself around the bundle of tension that is John's body. “I really never meant to have a go at your – mother,” he tells the side of John's head, catching himself just in time to delete the _dead_ from his sentence. “Or to forget about you.”

 

John laughs a little – not quite happily – and relaxes a fraction into the embrace, his arms coming up to circle Sherlock's back. “No, you never do, do you?” They stand for a moment, loosely wrapped together. “You're right, as always,” John mutters. “I'm not normal. I'm a nutter. I fucking _love_ _you_ , you incredible prick.”

 

Sherlock feels how this is the moment, how this is the right time – how he can make it better, show John that he can try, that he can change. He feels it so intensely right now, all of his limbs warmed through with it, the glow of it so deep and full of a breathless relief that he can feel the words filling his mouth, as natural as water. He opens his mouth, and –

 

John draws back and peers up into Sherlock's face. “Go to bed?” he asks, face lined with fatigue.

 

“Yes,” Sherlock says, hoarsely, almost choking on the width of the words caught in his throat.

 

 

 

**June 2018**

 

“She's all right,” John says immediately as Sherlock jogs up to him, ignoring the scandalised request of a nurse to stop running. “The doctor just talked to me. I was about to go outside to call you.”

 

They share a moment of intense relief between them. Sherlock, whose heart had been trying to break out of his ribcage, slumps against the hospital wall. “Thank God,” he breathes. “Thank God.”

 

John touches a hand to his shoulder. “Sherlock,” he says hesitantly, and something in his voice makes Sherlock straighten up again. “It's not... all fine.”

 

Sherlock scrutinises John's face. “It's going to happen again,” he concludes from what he reads there.

 

“Maybe. Probably,” John says. “And they don't know yet what the effect of this will be. It was a fairly big stroke, and it's possible... it's hard to say which areas of her brain were affected, and how they will recover. There will be damage, they just don't know where yet.”

 

Sherlock remains silent, and stares at John, daring him to say more.

 

Of course, John is brave. “Whatever happens, this is going to leave her a lot weaker and less self-sufficient than before,” he says. “If I hadn't been there, I don't know what would've happened.”

 

“You _were_ there,” Sherlock says, gripping John's shoulder. “That's best possible care she could have ever had. You saved her!”

 

“That was a lucky coincidence! You and I are never home and you know it.” John peers up at him, frowning. “What if it happens again while we're out on a case? The doctors say she _cannot_ have any excitement, and God knows living with us in that flat is about the furthest you can get from –”

 

“The doctors don't know her at all,” Sherlock snaps.

 

“ _I_ know her,” John says calmly. “I'm a doctor too. I agree with them; it's very likely that she'll need specialised care that we can't provide. Sherlock – be reasonable. I don't want to think about this either, but –”

 

“Then _don't_!” Sherlock yells, thumping his hand against the wall, startling a passing nurse.

 

John's eyes are very nearly hard. “We don't have a choice, okay. Either we give up on the life we have now and devote ourselves to her needs, or we can try to find her someplace where she can be completely looked after.”

 

Sherlock stares at him. He knows this John exists, this hard, efficient, pragmatic John – the John who was in Afghanistan, and who shot a man 24 hours after meeting Sherlock, and who has saved both of their lives dozens of times since – but it was never that John who talked to Mrs. Hudson, or about her. That John had a soft mouth and tender eyes.

 

“You're serious,” he says, throat dry.

 

“Do you think you can give up doing what you do?” John challenges him.

 

Sherlock is very nearly tempted to say yes, he'll do it – stop the casework, run down every thirty minutes to check on her, put his energy into putting together alarm systems she can trigger when she needs anything – but then he sees himself, clawing at the walls after three days, neglecting to check on her, unable to resist the pull of the city.

 

“No,” he says, the word like treason.

 

“Yeah,” John says, quietly. “She could die and it would be on _us_ , Sherlock.”

 

Sherlock presses his hands into his eyes. “We are terrible, selfish people,” he mutters.

 

John has the grace not to deny it.

 

“I should talk to her at least,” Sherlock says, feeling the weight of it suddenly drop onto his shoulders. “We can't make this decision like she doesn't have a right to make it herself.”

 

“She's not awake now,” John says.

 

“I'll wait,” Sherlock says, pinning John with a hard look.

 

“Sherlock, you don't have to do this on your own.” John wraps a hand around his arm.

 

“Yes I do,” Sherlock says, the certainty of it bitter and sharp.

 

There is a long moment of silence. John looks a little stricken. “Okay,” he finally says. “I'll talk to one of the nurses for you.”

 

*

 

She isn't really awake, but she's not asleep either. She looks at him. Doesn't speak. She's pale and small and hooked to a monitor that turns her inside out so it's possible to read the normally hidden rhythms of inner life. Sherlock swallows, looking at her. Between the obsessive brilliance of Daddy, the hot-and-cold, uncomprehending affection of Mummy and the controlling exasperation of Mycroft, the old woman in this bed and the man waiting outside in the corridor are the closest things he has to real family.

 

He picks up her hand from the sheet, the skin wrinkled and fragile like paper. “I want to take care of you,” he surprises himself by saying. “Though I never really have.”

 

The only response she gives him is a weak squeeze of her hand.

 

He sits with her and tells her that it will be all right – borrowing her vocabulary, her language, and feeling how clumsy he is with it.

 

He sits with her and assures her that he and John will always be there, and wonders if it can ever be true.

 

He sits with her until the feeling of wanting to cry passes.

 

Outside, John hands him a plastic cup of coffee, and Sherlock drinks it, tasting nothing but guilt.

 

 

 

**August 2018**

 

“Don't you worry,” Mrs. Hudson says, as though Sherlock is the one who needs reassuring. “It's a beautiful place. They've got swans in the garden.” She's standing up, leaning against her table, though her wheelchair is waiting for her in a corner. The movers, whistling, bulky Armenians, are busy dismantling one of her closets – one of a few precious items she can take with her.

 

“We'll visit you whenever we can,” Sherlock says, sticking close to her in case she needs his help. “At least once every two weeks, I promise.”

 

“You are good to me, boys,” she says. She is brave, she is. Loves them. Had agreed with John from the beginning, though Sherlock still isn't sure how much of that was the thought that she didn't want to inconvenience them. She had forcibly refused any of their offers that involved _them_ moving out, and had found the home herself, leafing through folders with Mrs. Turner.

 

“At least once _every_ week,” John corrects Sherlock from the doorframe, smiling a weak smile.

 

Mrs. Hudson looks at him with a look of deep gratitude, which makes John drop his eyes and duck out of sight, into the hall. Sherlock knows John can hardly bear to see this, no matter how much he was the one to push for this solution. Still, it annoys Sherlock slightly that _he's_ the one in here with her now, having to help her shuffle around on her uncertain, increasingly useless legs, having to pretend to not feel the extent of her grief at having to leave Baker Street. She picks up a doily with shaky fingers, then smooths it down again.

 

“Well,” she says, and folds her mouth into a trembly smile, “it's in good hands.”

 

Sherlock nearly laughs at that, because there are many things he and John are, but reliable lodgers they are not. But he looks at her, at the way she looks at _him_ , and supposes that isn't really what she's talking about at all.

 

*

 

They help Mrs. Hudson with the sheets in the room and wheel her around the garden in her chair, surreptitiously feeding the swans even though they aren't allowed, and then she and John play cards while Sherlock reads an article on mid-life traumatic genetic modifications and tries hard not to get antsy at the chattering of other residents down the hall.

 

Lestrade texts:

 

_could have a case for you_

_looks like triple homicide_

_but v strange forensic_

_results can you come?_

 

and Sherlock texts back:

 

_Busy. Tomorrow._

_SH_

 

When they leave, Mrs. Hudson seems okay.

 

*

 

At home, the flat is quiet and strange.

 

“Angelo's?” John says, before he even takes off his shoes.

 

“Yes,” Sherlock says.

 

 

 

**Christmas 2018**

 

The home's grounds are covered with a light dusting of snow that had already completely melted in London by the time Sherlock and John had made it out of the city's Christmas traffic. The swans float like still, giant snow sculptures on the grey surface of the lake. Mrs. Hudson sits folded into her wheelchair, about every inch of her covered by blankets and hats and scarves and knitted cloths her neighbour has made for her.

 

“I can almost smell the pudding,” she says, and the movement of the incredible amounts of fabric covering her suggests she's rubbing her hands together.

 

*

 

“Sherlock?” Mrs. Hudson asks as Sherlock and John are doing up their coats, fighting out a silent argument with only their eyes about who will go outside to try to start the ancient and temperamental Honda they bought basically only to drive here.

 

“Yes,” Sherlock says, quite fluent in the shorter way she speaks nowadays when she can, the rest of the question unsaid. It tires her a little, putting words into the right order.

 

“I'll go and try to get the car going,” John says after a moment, the translation taking him a little longer. He sends a small mock-glare Sherlock's way at having to start the car, and kisses Mrs. Hudson's cheek before leaving the room.

 

“What do you need?” Sherlock says, sitting down on her bed next to her.

 

The spark in her eyes is shrewd as ever. “I set everything up with Mr. Lancy – you know, the retired notary on the second floor. He's got his son, Henry. I've got to... I named you and John as my bene... my somethings – you'll both own half of it, when. Well.” She falls silent, folds her face along the familiar, well-trod lines of a smile.

 

“What?” he says, frowning. “You know you don't have to do that.”

 

“Who else would I give it to?” she says and makes a sighing sound that suggests she's so _tired_ , and wouldn't it be _cruel_ of Sherlock and John to ask her to change her decision now, after all that _trouble_.

 

He sits, lost for words, looking at her, still formidable when it matters. He feels a flicker of pride at the way she meets his stare innocently.

 

“I wish you'd marry him,” she says then, sounding long-suffering. “It would make everything easier.”

 

Sherlock huffs a laugh at the familiar refrain, then narrows his eyes at her. “Why are you telling me this now?”

 

She smiles. “John would try to talk me out of it.”

 

“And I wouldn't?”

 

“No,” she says, pats his hand with trembling fingers, and doesn't elaborate.

 

*

 

“Is she okay?” John asks him when he gets into the car, the engine of which is running and shuddering far more than it should while stationary.

 

Sherlock hums an affirmative and spends the rest of the drive looking out the window, watching the snow diminish as they draw closer to the warmer stony breath of the city.

 

 

 

**May 2019**

 

“You had a bloody good run, mate,” John tells Lestrade, and claps him on the shoulder in the bloke-y chummy way they have that Sherlock has never quite understood.

 

“Thanks,” Lestrade says, smiling, though there is a definite hint of melancholy in the way he allows his eyes to wander around the table that holds his team, drinking and eating on his behalf. “'s not quite over yet. But desk job's not going to be the same as running around in the streets.”

 

“Sherlock was telling me earlier about how he's going to miss you,” John says, and grins unabashedly at Sherlock when Sherlock levels a glare at him.

 

“All I said was, you're the least incompetent of everyone in this department.”

 

“Aw, Sherlock,” Lestrade says, and to Sherlock's horror, his eyes are shiny when he tips his glass up to Sherlock in a salute. “It was an honour to work with you too.”

 

*

 

“Oh, shut up, whiner,” John says easily in the cab home as Sherlock complains about the length of the Chief Superintendent's speech. “You know you're going to wish he hadn't been promoted.”

 

Sherlock thinks about protesting, but instead opts for a dignified silence, looking out the window at the city blurring past.

 

 

 

**October 2019**

 

“– fucking inconsiderate,” John snaps, throwing down his tea towel and dropping the plate he was furiously pretending to dry back into the water in the sink. “I told you _five_ times you needed to keep that weekend free!”

 

Sherlock throws up his hands. “I'm sorry if your thrilling reunions with your school mates don't remain at the top of my brain all the time!”

 

“Yeah, just delete everything I say,” John says nastily, pointing a soapy finger at Sherlock. “That's easier, isn't it? Easier than trying to take my plans into consideration for once.”

 

“It's a _school reunion_ ,” Sherlock says loudly.

 

“Yeah? Well, I fucking _wanted_ you there so at least I'd have –” John cuts himself off, and his shoulders tense.

 

Sherlock blinks, the flare of annoyance dying down. “Someone to talk to,” he finishes.

 

John licks his lips, clearly not quite ready to give up. “Fat chance of you being supportive for once, right?”

 

Sherlock frowns and waves it away, completely capable by now of telling when John means something he says in a fight and when he doesn't. “Why would you even want to go if you hate everyone there?”

 

“I don't _hate_ everyone there,” John grumbles, but some of the heat has gone out of it. He plunges his hands back into the sink and starts vigorously scrubbing a plate.

 

“You don't have to go,” Sherlock says. “No one's forcing you. No one will even know you're not there.”

 

John stops scrubbing and takes a deep breath. “Look, I just thought it'd be...”

 

“Normal,” Sherlock supplies.

 

John meets his gaze with his jaw working. “Nice,” he says, clipped.

 

“ _Nice_ ,” Sherlock repeats with distaste. “You're not _nice_. Your classmates are the ones who are _nice_ , and they're statistically very likely to suddenly find someone new to talk to after you introduce them to me and then ask you about anal sex and how it _works_ as soon as they've had four drinks.”

 

John huffs an incredulous laugh. “You have no data whatsoever to base that on!”

 

“Generalities,” Sherlock says flippantly, and comes into the kitchen to put his hands on John's shoulders. “You're not going. There is nothing you would like to do less. We're going to Angelo's instead that night.”

 

John's shoulders sag a little under his fingers. He turns around and peers up at Sherlock.

 

“That's really not the point,” he says, and Sherlock knows John has given up the fight just for the sake of the fight. “The point is that I told you _five_ times and you still managed to forget.”

 

“I didn't forget,” Sherlock says promptly. “I deleted it, because I realised subconsciously how much you didn't want to go. See? I am supportive of your _buried desires_. Surely that's better than being supportive of your voiced ones.”

 

John stares at him, and after a few moments can't stop his mouth from twitching. “You're impossible,” he says, and picks up a new plate, more gently this time.

 

*

 

“Must admit this is – better than the reunion,” John says after they come home from Angelo's, breath catching when Sherlock mouths at the sensitive skin on the inside of his thigh.

 

“Shhh,” Sherlock says, and runs his tongue up the length of John's cock, licking away the bitter bead of pre-come at the tip.

 

 

 

**June 2020**

 

Mycroft actually shakes Sherlock's hand at the church doors, the skin of his own dry and soft, the pressure of his handshake perfectly measured and unrevealing of any facet of his character. Sherlock knows all of it is premeditated; Mycroft is the kind of man who works with other men who think they know a person's inner life by measuring their handshake and looking deep into their eyes. “I do wish we could see each other occasionally in less mournful circumstances,” Mycroft says.

 

Something like _I wish we could simply see each other less in every circumstance_ makes its way to the top of Sherlock's brain, but it isn't worth it. He simply nods and lets Mycroft's fingers go.

 

“I know how much she meant to you. Both of you.” Mycroft's eyes flick to John. “I think she was very happy to have both of you in her life.”

 

“Yes, thank you, Mycroft,” Sherlock says, aiming for clipped and stranding at tired.

 

“Thanks,” John says hoarsely when Mycroft shakes his hand too. Mycroft steps away after giving Sherlock a final delicate look of his typical Mycroft sympathy – the kind Sherlock has never really known is genuine or not.

 

John squeezes his elbow. Sherlock closes his eyes.

 

*

 

“Mrs. Hudson wasn't really a first name kind of person. I don't think I've ever really used her first name until a couple of days ago,” John addresses the church, then has to collect himself, looking at his speech cards for help. “Just like she was a – a last name sort of person, she was also a last love sort of person,” he persists bravely, voice already thready. Sherlock wonders for a moment if John has done this before: tried to find words to throw down into the well of loss and then listen, hoping for an echo. In Afghanistan, maybe, under the sun-glare of the sky, looking at his hands and wondering if he could have done more. He hadn't wanted to speak at his mother's funeral, Sherlock recalls. He can hear, somewhere behind him, the sound of Molly blowing her nose in her handkerchief.

 

Sherlock sits watching John as he stumbles over the complicated words of his simple love, and then has to bend his head and cover his eyes with his hands, because what presses up behind them, hot and wet and painful, is unstoppable.

 

*

 

That night, John gets out of bed and goes to the bathroom. Sherlock can hear his muffled sobs, and can imagine down to the smallest detail the way John bites down on his tongue to stifle the sound, and presses the palms of his hands into his eyes hard, as though willing the tears to go back in. He feels empty thinking about it, as though he's cried all the tears he had already, and though the sound of John stirs something deep and painful in him now, there is nothing left to give.

 

When John comes back and gets between the sheets, Sherlock sits up.

 

“You don't have to hide,” he says quietly in the dark, and John exhales audibly. Sherlock touches a hand to his cheek. Then, John rolls over, presses his damp face into Sherlock's shoulder, shaking his head, and then, as though letting something go, cries a little more, shoulders jerking.

 

 

 

**July 2020**

 

“I'd like to talk to you about – finding someplace else.” John's voice is cautious as he says it, holding out a mug of tea for Sherlock.

 

Sherlock takes it, but looks at John's face. It isn't exactly a surprise – he'd been expecting this, but nevertheless his first instinct is still to completely, utterly reject the notion.

 

“Where?” he asks instead.

 

“I don't know,” John says, looking distinctly relieved at his reaction. “I don't want to leave London or anything. But, maybe, you know. Something with a garden, maybe.”

 

“Leave Baker Street?” Sherlock isn't really asking John the question; it's more a question to himself.

 

“I don't know about you,” John says and takes a breath before continuing, “but I don't really like it here anymore.”

 

Sherlock swirls the tea in his mug, looking down into it thoughtfully. The thought of leaving is heavy and painful, but John is right that staying has been heavy and painful too these past weeks.

 

“And you know that if we're honest we can't afford to do the upkeep on this place unless we rent out 221A – and we should rent out C too if we want to be entirely comfortable,” John says, looking vaguely guilty for saying it. “If we rent out all of the flats we can easily get a big loan to buy or rent a different place. If that's... you know. If that's something you would want.”

 

The idea makes Sherlock scowl. He knows, immediately, that if they really have to rent out the flats he doesn't want to live here anymore. “Let's think about it a bit longer,” he says, and blows on his tea, watching the ripples.

 

 

 

**September 2020**

 

“Okay, _fine_ ,” Sherlock says eventually, thumbing through their bills with distaste. “Somewhere with more natural light, then. I've never liked looking at my microscope slides under this lamp.”

 

 

 

**May 2021**

 

“Nice place,” John says lightly, looking away from the body to the dusty elegance of the oak book racks lining the wall and the Victorian splendour of the fire grate.

 

“Yes,” Sherlock confirms, snapping his latex gloves off his hands and letting his eyes wander over the living room. “Likely family property. Victim was a professor in....” He walks over to one of the book racks and picks up a book, carefully opening it to the first page. “...zoology, at first glance.”

 

“Holmes!” Dimmock calls over from the other side of the room, where he's talking to Anderson. “Don't touch that without your gloves!”

 

Ignoring him, Sherlock runs a finger through the pages absently. He looks round the room. “Victim was a widower of at least ten years, one son who died in his thirties, no grandchildren, and apparently no extended relations he was close enough to to put up pictures of them.”

 

“Looks like a tumour in his neck,” John says, and leans in to brush away the man's wispy white hair from the bump under his ear. “We'd have to wait for the autopsy to be sure what type it is, but that looks like fairly advanced lymphoma to me.”

 

Sherlock taps the book against his lips. “So: a recluse, eccentric, and now ill. He's been barely taking care of himself in recent months, judging by his shave and the shape his clothes are in. Good quality, but worn down to a thread.”

 

John looks down at the body, curled into a foetal position on its side as though peacefully sleeping, were it not for the large pool of blood around it, seeped from a fatal head wound. “And now this. Poor bugger.”

 

“Who would want to kill an elderly zoologist with no family who's probably on the verge of death anyway?” Sherlock says, putting the book back in its place. “Who would go to the trouble to do this instead of just waiting a few months until he drops dead on his own?”

 

“Disgruntled unemployed ex-students?” John suggests drily, before going off to the side of the room to open the large glass door there.

 

Sherlock takes another moment to sweep his gaze over the body. Blunt force trauma, several blows, perpetrator knew what he was doing. A planned murder, not an impulsive one. Victim's body was rearranged into its current position post-mortem, but –

 

“Sherlock?” John's voice comes from outside the room. “I know this isn't really the time, but you might want to take a look at this.”

 

“Why is it not the time?” he calls back.

 

“It's not exactly case-related.”

 

“Then why would I want to see it?”

 

“Trust me,” John says, and Sherlock can hear his smile, “you do.”

 

Sherlock sighs, straightens up and goes over to the door. John is just outside it, standing inside a bright, roomy, circular structure of glass and iron, on one side half overgrown with flowering ivy. The glass dome is dirty and some of the windows are cracked, but it still gives them a nearly 180° overview of the garden, that stretches back quite a long way, into thick, neglected undergrowth and wildly flowering fruit trees that have clearly not been looked after in recent years.

 

“Ah,” Sherlock says, blinking.

 

“How does that feel then?” John asks him, smiling.

 

“Quite... good,” Sherlock says, quirking one corner of his mouth.

 

They stand together a for moment, breathing the iron-flavoured air inside the dome. “The victim doesn't have children, you said,” John says, thoughtful. “As soon as the case gets cleared, the house'll likely go on the market.”

 

“And with the horrendous murder that happened here, the price will be lowered considerably,” Sherlock fills in.

 

“The agent will probably be pleased to find anyone interested at all.”

 

They share a grin, standing in the generous spill of light inside the dome, and Sherlock, on impulse, bends down a little and presses a quick kiss to John's laughing mouth. John clasps his sleeve and pushes up into it, pulling him back down when he starts to withdraw.

 

“Gentlemen,” Dimmock says behind them, “might I remind you this is a crime scene?”

 

“Certainly, inspector,” Sherlock says, straightening. “Let me tell you what I know. The sooner this is all cleared up, the sooner John and I can buy this house.”

 

 

 

**October 2021**

 

“Don't say anything,” John says menacingly, pointing a dripping brush at Sherlock. “I asked you seven times what colour you wanted, and you lost your right to have a say when you ignored me every time.”

 

Sherlock makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “John, you should see a doctor. Someone who isn't _you_. I really think there's something wrong with your eyes.”

 

“Out,” John says, and follows Sherlock with the brush in his outstretched hand until he's through the door.

 

Sherlock skulks in the hallway, watching John's confident strokes, smiling a little to himself.

 

*

 

At night, the street outside is silent in a way Baker Street never was. Sherlock, well on his way to an orgasm, allows himself to be pushed down into the mattress by the warm, sweaty pressure of John's torso against his back, which limits the angle of John's cock inside him to shallow thrusts that do absolutely nothing but sharpen the edge of his want. It tickles at Sherlock's senses, the way John's fast, ragged breathing against his neck sounds just a little different here – as though the room responds to him differently than their bedroom at Baker Street did, or the clear, silent night outside has more room for him.

 

The thought vanishes when John shifts up a little, and the head of his cock pushes in just a bit deeper, sending a tingle of hot pleasure up Sherlock's spine.

 

“John, for Christ's sake,” he groans, trying to get more friction by pushing his hips up, but the weight of John's body holds him down. He whines, and grinds himself down against the mattress.

 

“Not – yet,” John pants, and Sherlock feels the moist warmth of John's smiling mouth against his shoulder blade.

 

Sherlock fists his hands in the sheets and tries to push back into the small movements of John's hips. The skin on skin contact between them is slick and hot with sweat. John's thrusts are fast and superficial, teasing relentlessly, and Sherlock feels his body start to tingle with the need to have him deeper, to have all of him inside. He whimpers when John scrapes his teeth over the muscle in his neck, the spark of pain melting into the building pleasure inside him. Suddenly feeling a very keen desire to have John closer in any way, he twists his head to get it closer to John's, and John responds by sucking a hard, wet kiss into the base of his neck, unable to actually reach his mouth.

 

“John, please,” Sherlock breathes, “need you – need you deeper – please –”

 

“How – is it,” John grunts, clearly only managing to not deepen the contact by the final threads of his self-restraint.

 

“Terrible,” Sherlock manages, and John laughs breathlessly, his hips stuttering, losing their rhythm.

 

“ _You're_ terrible,” he says, then pushes himself up on his elbows, lifting himself off Sherlock's back. Sherlock gives a low, needy sound of protest at the feeling of John's cock slipping out of his body.

 

“Come on, up,” John breathes, and with some fumbling Sherlock manages to get himself up on his knees and elbows, John's hands steady and warm on his hips. John presses against him, nestling his cock between Sherlock's arse cheeks, the tip of him touching Sherlock's balls, hot and tight. Sherlock makes a sound of frustration that melts into a moan when John wraps a hand around his cock and strokes it four, five times, slicking it with pre-come. Sherlock shudders, pleasure flaring in his groin.

 

“Think you can come like this if I fuck you properly?” John asks him, giving his cock a final squeeze and letting it go.

 

“Ah – maybe,” Sherlock pants. It's been a while since they've done it like this, since they took the time for it, but his orgasm is so close he can almost taste it; his body is aching with it.

 

“Good,” John says, voice heavy with lust, and aligns his cock with Sherlock's body before pushing in easily, sliding forward until he's sheathed balls-deep inside Sherlock, and Sherlock lets his face drop to his forearms, moaning.

 

John places a steadying hand on Sherlock's back and starts to move, no longer teasing now; he fucks Sherlock deeply, without reservation, the ridged head of his cock grazing Sherlock's prostate at nearly every thrust.

 

It doesn't take long before Sherlock can feel his orgasm building, his muscles starting to clench. Every nerve in his body is taut and firing, his cock bouncing against his stomach with every one of John's thrusts. “John – it's – _ngh_ –”

 

“Come on then,” John says hoarsely, “come on, Sherlock, _come on_ , let it go –”

 

Sherlock stifles a broken little sob by biting into his arm, and then he's coming, his cock pulsing against his stomach, come spilling hotly onto himself and the sheets. The sound he makes is unintelligible, a meaningless smear of vowels.

 

“Oh, yes,” John groans, “that's it – come on –” He fucks Sherlock hard through every wave and tremor of it, until it's over and Sherlock comes back into himself, gasping.

 

John keeps up the pace and comes inside Sherlock, warm and messy and wet and _fucking perfect_ , and Sherlock can do nothing but give in to the impulse to laugh breathlessly as John crumples onto his back, shuddering through his orgasm.

 

Finally John stills, and presses a wet kiss to Sherlock's shoulder. “Fuck,” he breathes.

 

“Yes,” Sherlock agrees, dazed, brain sated and silent.

 

“Lemme just –” John half-slurs, then pulls out of Sherlock's body. Sherlock winces at the slick feeling of come and lube, and the sudden nothing inside him. With John gone, he simply lets his knees slide out from under him and collapses onto his side, trying clumsily not to land in his own come. He feels John reaching for the flannel and endures the quick, tenderly efficient touches of it, as well as the soft billowing of air and coolness as John draws up the bedsheet to cover them.

 

John spoons around him, sticky and a little too warm, wrapping an arm around Sherlock's waist. Sherlock, half-asleep, threads his fingers through John's.

 

“There's your _terrible,_ you prat,” John murmurs, and Sherlock smiles, and squeezes John's hand with his own, feeling completely, _utterly_ good.

 

 

 

**January 1** **st** **, 2022**

 

“This is no time for alcohol, John,” Sherlock snaps at John when he comes into the living room with two glasses of sparkling wine. “I've just received the most interesting e-mail on the website in _months_. And it's just here in Greenwich. Get your coat on.”

 

John blinks. “I was going to say _happy anniversary_ and, I dunno, _happy new house,_ or something, but, er, okay.”

 

“Plenty of time for that nonsense later,” Sherlock says, flapping an impatient hand.

 

*

 

“Bell's broken,” John says, turning his head to hear anything as Sherlock presses his finger to the button next to a tattered name tag reading _C. Nawrot: animal conservation and taxidermy_.

 

“As always, John, you are completely oblivious to everything that's happening right in front of you,” Sherlock says happily. He breathes in deeply and then exhales, his breath rising in a wisp of warmth.

 

*

 

Cecylia Nawrot, around eighty years old, speaks with a strange, nasal, lilting rhythm and a basic vocabulary with vowels all out of swing that suggests that she had some time to master the basics of Polish before something happened that almost completely destroyed her hearing – meningitis, most likely, at the age of about six, after which she learned bits and pieces of English later in life, when she was already deaf. Sherlock looks around as she serves them strong coffee (“Tea no,” she'd said, wrinkled hands shaping the words out of habit). Her living room is full of dead animals, their eyes glinting with a dull, dead attention. Ferrets are frozen in macabre frolicking play on the mantelpiece, a large dog sits next to Sherlock's seat as though waiting for a treat, a fluffy white cat is curled up into one of the armchairs opposite them, convincingly asleep.

 

John catches Sherlock's eye. He looks positively spooked, and Sherlock gives him a little grin.

 

Cecylia doesn't like speaking. Her old hands tremble with the effort of not taking over from her voice, and forming full sentences makes her frown and tug nervously on her long grey braid.

 

“Write it down,” Sherlock tells her, enunciating clearly, and then watches as she writes, pencil on thin recycled paper, tongue peeking out of her mouth in concentration.

 

*

 

John makes a horrified sound as they overlook the carnage; the dogs' bellies slashed open, entrails spilling onto the cold stones of the large courtyard where they were kept at night, the blood crusty and shining with the frost of the previous night. There are at least twelve animals there, butchered carelessly, paws sticking up, furs matted with blood.

 

Cecylia thrusts her notepad at Sherlock, eyes aglitter with deep emotion. _Left them so for you, v hard_. _Dont want police, dont help, never help. YOU HELP._ He glances at her, at the tough set of her mouth, the shrewd, hard spark of her eyes.

 

“Okay,” he says.

 

“Jesus,” John says, and presses his palm against his mouth – John, who doesn't even blink at most of the crime scenes they visit. “Who would _do_ this? And _why_?”

 

Sherlock moves closer to one of the carcases and squats near it, looking at the snarl of its muzzle even in death, the way its teeth are stained red. “Not just an animal-hating sadist,” he says. “There's method to this, however clumsy.”

 

“Huh,” John says behind him. “I thought that cat was dead.”

 

Sherlock glances back to see the white fluffy cat rubbing its face obstinately against John's calf, with the fine-tuned sense of all felines to pick out the person in any company that dislikes them the most.

 

*

 

“It's to do with the quarantine,” Sherlock tells John as they leave Cecylia's driveway. “The dogs were quarantined for four weeks when she came back to the UK after staying with her street dog project in Guatemala for 18 months. Some of the dogs came from the shelters there, but plenty of them were with her before. The animals have only been back for a few days. Something happened during the quarantine.”

 

“Are you thinking drugs?” John asks, trying hard to get the stubborn white cat hairs off his jacket sleeve.

 

“Smuggled out of the airport in their stomachs?” Sherlock says. “Possibly. Someone high-up at customs must be involved in that case. But even so there's more to it. She has a visual alarm that the dogs are trained to trip when someone they don't know enters the compound. She told me she's never slept through it. They didn't raise any alarm, even when someone was brutally slaughtering their fellows.” Sherlock claps his hands together. “Either way, this looks like a proper government muck-up,” he says, grinning. “It's about time something like this rolled around again! I think we should pay a visit to the animal quarantine in Heathrow.”

 

“The car's at the dealer's,” John reminds him, “because you thought it would be fun to experiment with the durability of tyre rubber in aceton, remember?”

 

In the taxi to the airport, as Sherlock is busy thumbing through Cecylia's dogs' travelling documents, he catches John typing up a text, angling his phone away from Sherlock.

 

“What're you doing?”

 

“Nothing,” John says, with a half-serious, half-amused frown. “Just... changing some arrangements. It's none of your business, creep.”

 

Sherlock blinks at him, then shrugs.

 

 

 

**February 2022**

 

“How was she?” John's voice comes from the verandah as Sherlock wipes his shoes on the entrance mat, wincing at the dog shit caught on his sole.

 

“Not quite yet recovered from the idea that there are neighbours who will callously sedate and cut open your pets when one of them supposedly eats their wife's diamond brooch,” Sherlock calls back. He takes off the shoes, wrinkles his nose at them, and dumps them in a corner of the hall.

 

In the kitchen, he grabs a pear from the fruit basket and pads to the verandah on socked feet. John is sitting on the new sofa in the middle of the winter light-bright dome, fighting the chill behind the glass with one of Mrs. Hudson's blankets, which had migrated with them from Baker Street. He glances up from his book when Sherlock comes to stand next to him.

 

“I hope you didn't tell her you were disappointed by the case's ending,” he says, raising an eyebrow.

 

“I would never,” Sherlock mumbles around a mouthful of pear, and rolls his eyes at John's openly sceptical look. “Besides, it was worth it just to see you punch the neighbour in the face.”

 

“He's a sick fuck,” John says simply. “She's getting the damage claim money, right?”

 

Sherlock nods. “And he's being forced to leave the neighbourhood as part of the settlement.”

 

“Good,” John says, and returns his attention to his book.

 

“She gave me something,” Sherlock says. He takes the slip of paper out of his pocket and shakes it open before handing it to John.

 

John studies it, eyes widening. “Wow, that's...” He tilts his head to the side. “That's amazing. Look at the texture of your coat! And your hair – it's... how did she even do that without proper models?”

 

“Her visual memory is very strong,” Sherlock says, and smiles a little. “She said sorry because it's such a rough sketch.”

 

“That's a rough sketch for her?” John says, sounding awed. “She got us completely spot on, Sherlock!”

 

“Especially your distrusting, doubting glance at me,” Sherlock says.

 

“Shove off,” John says, and smiles up at Sherlock as he hands the portrait back. “That's clearly an adoring and admiring look.”

 

“You need a bit more practice, I think,” Sherlock says, and ducks away to avoid John's half-hearted swipe at him with his novel.

 

*

 

John tells him to put the picture up somewhere in a frame, and after a few days of indecision Sherlock finally hangs it on the wall in the bedroom, because it's tender, this: the way John looks intently at him in the drawing, and the way his own hand just barely seems to rest on John's elbow as he looks elsewhere, somewhere off-screen, eyes focused and bright even in the stark black-and-white palette of the charcoal picture.

 

When he comes to bed that night, John is still awake, and pulls him close, fingers trailing slowly over the expanse of his back, seeming to count the bumps of his vertebrae. Sherlock believes in the rules of action and reaction, and he knows by now that John forces himself to see in other things what Sherlock still can't say, for reasons that remain vague and hidden even to himself.


	2. Chapter 2

**April 2022**

 

“What're you reading?” John asks, touching his chin to Sherlock's shoulder from behind.

 

“One of the professor's old books,” Sherlock says absently. “When I was mowing the lawn I discovered his beehives in the back. They look like they've been disused for years, but I want to know what he was doing with them.”

 

“Making honey, at a wild guess.”

 

Sherlock looks up from the book, and turns his face sidewards, which causes his nose to bump into John's cheek.

 

John withdraws a little so they can look at each other, and huffs a laugh. “Don't tell me you deleted that bit of elementary bee biology, please.” As Sherlock blinks, trying to parse this particular bit of information, John suddenly says: “Wait. You – mowed the lawn? The _entire_ lawn?”

 

Sherlock looks ahead, at the brightly flowering madness of the garden beyond the glass of the verandah. “I _will_ conquer this garden,” he says confidently, and John makes a humming sound of amusement.

 

 

 

**August 2022**

 

_Where are you? Need your_

_assistance at the Yard._

_S_

 

 

_Sorry, can't, that job_

_interview_

_J_

 

 

_What?_

_S_

 

 

_I told you 3 times, private_

_practice in Chelsea,_

_they're hiring a 4_ _th_ _doctor_

_half-time_

_J_

 

 

_How snobby._

_S_

 

 

_Yes hello kettle_

_J_

 

*

 

_Got hired_

_J_

 

 

_Good, now you can_

_get over here._

_S_

 

 

_Wow John, very well_

_done, this will certainly_

_take the strain off our_

_financial situation a little_

_so I am very grateful_

_that you have taken this_

_step and very proud that_

_you were hired_

_\- your devoted partner_

_Sherlock Holmes, in awe_

_of your amazingness_

 

 

_Very witty. Stop wasting_

_time typing texts that are_

_too long for your dexterous_

_ability and get over here._

_S_

 

 

 

**May 2023**

 

“And I don't suppose it occurred to you to discuss this with me?”

 

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “It's something that I'm interested in. I don't see why I need to ask your permission to pursue an interest.”

 

John splutters a bit, cheeks reddening with anger. “It's _our_ fucking garden, isn't it? It's not just _yours_!”

 

“I do all the work in it,” Sherlock says with what he feels is crushing logic.

 

“Because I'm the only one with a regularly paying job around here,” John says sharply, and in the second of silence that follows his expression changes. “I'm sorry, that wasn't –” He takes a breath. “I didn't mean that.”

 

Sherlock frowns at him, because he clearly _did._ “Since when do you care so much about that? And anyway, we got 5,000 quid last month out of that scarecrow case,” he says, annoyed.

 

“After three months of nothing,” John says quickly, and then he winces, as though he wasn't planning on actually saying that out loud. He passes a hand over his brow. “Look, that's not – that's not the point. I don't mind the money; we're doing fine. But _bees_ , Sherlock. Ordering bees online to start hives.”

 

“Why not?” Sherlock asks, throwing up his hands, still not quite seeing the problem. “The hives are already there, and I want to.”

 

“I am so allergic to bees it isn't even funny anymore,” John snaps. “And I would've thought _you_ would've thought of something like that before getting live animals off some shady website. I dunno, a train of thought that went _I live with someone. Maybe I should ask that someone if they're okay bringing stinging vicious insects into our lives before I go online and order them._ ”

 

Sherlock stares at him. “You've never said you were allergic to bees.”

 

“Well, it's not like we encountered them daily in the centre of London!” John glowers at him. “I'd like to be able to sit outside in my garden without running the risk of suffocating. Is that too much to ask?”

 

“How did I not know this?” Sherlock asks, more a question to himself than to John.

 

“By being an idiot who thinks he knows everything,” John says, rather heatedly.

 

There's a silence. “I'll think of something,” Sherlock says. “They'll be in the back of the garden anyway. We can put a hedge or something in front. As far as I know they stay close to the hive.”

 

“As far as you know. That sounds reassuring.” John breathes out, steadying himself. “I suppose it is quite a way back. But seriously, Sherlock. I want them gone if I feel uncomfortable about them, okay?”

 

Sherlock nods, aware that he's being given the benefit of the doubt. “Okay.”

 

John eyes him. He looks tired; not just the tired of sleep deprivation, but a bone-deep kind of tired, the tired that Sherlock is sharply aware comes from dealing with the same problems over and over again. “And for God's sake, can you _please_ make another effort not to make decisions like this without me?”

 

“Yes,” Sherlock says, swallowing.

 

John turns to leave the verandah.

 

“John?”

 

John looks over his shoulder at Sherlock, reads the question on his face and rolls his eyes, but his expression softens. “Peanuts and hazelnuts,” he says. “But that one's pretty mild.”

 

 

 

**May 2023**

 

“Do you ever think about it?” John asks, cautious in the relative safety of the darkening bedroom in the evening, their bodies close together in the lingering stuffiness of a hot spring day. John, tired of Sherlock's whining about the weather, had spread him open on the bed, fingering him slowly and mercilessly until Sherlock had felt like he was about to _die_ , to choke on the incredible heat of it, on the inside of him and out, and he'd come so hard he'd had strips of come on his _chin_. The intimacy of it has drawn them together now, sticky bodies reluctant to unstick. “About getting married, I mean,” John continues.

 

They'd received the invitation to Molly's wedding in the mail, simple and unpretentious. (“No kittens or ribbons. He must have better taste than she does,” Sherlock had said, and John had stifled a giggle, then half-heartedly glared.) Molly had written, under her printed name and his (Nicholas): _Would love to see you both again!!! x_

 

Sherlock, who'd been half-dozing, half-thinking, opens his eyes. “You mean in the general sense?” he asks, suddenly cautious.

 

John sighs very, very quietly, and shifts, removing some of the lazy, full contact of his limbs, drawing his body back a little so the line between them is more clear. “You're so stupid sometimes,” he whispers into Sherlock's skin.

 

“I know,” Sherlock tells him, a small flicker of unease lighting up in his belly. He tries: “I've never really thought about if it's something that I could do.”

 

“That you _could_ do?” John asks, with more patience than he probably feels. “Or that you _wanted_ to do?”

 

“I never thought there was much difference,” Sherlock says honestly.

 

John is silent for such a long time that Sherlock starts to think it might be enough. Then, John sits up and looks down on him.

 

“I don't want to –” he begins, then stops. “What are you afraid of?” he finally says, the words coming out quickly as though he's forcing them out.

 

This isn't about marriage anymore, Sherlock knows. (He knows John doesn't really care about that, is in fact quite cynical about the whole thing, and thinks it's mostly a hassle anyway.) “Nothing,” he says, which is almost true, anyway; he's learning to live with what he does fear, day after day, and living with it means never saying it.

 

John takes a breath. “We've been together for _eight years_ now. I know you sometimes... but – you bought this house with me. You had no problems signing off on a decade-long loan to do that. You had no issue with cohabiting legally. You...” He glances at Sherlock's face. “You are so committed to this, do you even realise that?”

 

Sherlock frowns. “I'm aware, yes,” he says. “That was rather the point of doing those things.”

 

“Then why –” John says, sounding uncomprehending. “Why is it still –”

 

Sherlock closes his eyes, suddenly feeling very, very naked. When he finally forces himself to open them again, John's face has shuttered, his eyes have gone mostly blank. It's John's nature to proceed with extreme caution about things that touch so close to the depth of him, as Sherlock knows quite well by now. Whenever Sherlock withdraws in conversations like this, John doesn't persist. It's a pattern Sherlock wishes he had more strength to resist.

 

“Okay,” John says, seeming all right, and he draws a hand over his forehead as though wiping something away. “It's nearly seven. Want to shower and get some dinner?”

 

 

 

**July 2023**

 

“Behave, okay,” John mutters at him out of the corner of his mouth.

 

Sherlock grimaces a little, but manages to turn it into a smile when he sees her approaching, stretching out her short body over the crowd to wave at them from across the party, and then remembering herself enough to tug self-consciously at the intricate fabric of her dress skirt.

 

“Congratulations, Molly,” he says when she reaches them, and there is a moment of awkward physicality as she leans up towards him and he's not entirely sure where she's going; then he stoops a little and allows her to brush not-quite-kisses against his cheek. When she draws back she looks a little flustered, which is such a familiar sight it almost makes him feel triumphant – a dirty sort of feeling that he squashes before it fully matures.

 

“Thank you,” she beams. “I'm so glad you could make it!” She does appear to be honestly happy, under the nervous quickness of her eyes, the hand placed protectively over the neckline of her dress. A soft glimmer of genuine affection for her sparks momentarily in Sherlock's chest; it isn't that hard to remember how much she's done for him when he needed her, and that he's always mistreated her because he never really knew what to do with the persistent vulnerability of her desire for him.

 

John, playing jovial, says: “Think we'd miss this?” and she moves over to give him a kiss, as well.

 

“You should meet Nicholas, John,” she says. “He's...” She stretches a little, looking out for the shape of her new husband amidst the people. “He's right over there, talking to his dad.” She smiles at John. “He's a doctor too. He was employed as an MO in the 2016 Falklands War.” She then seems to realise that sharing a medical war history might be a sensitive topic to some people, and amends: “If that's... I mean...”

 

John saves her, not without a swift eyebrows-raised look at Sherlock that Sherlock doesn't immediately understand: “Sure, I'd like to meet him.”

 

She goes off, struggling a little with the dress, and gets side-tracked into the cooing affection of a group of women her age; university friends, Sherlock thinks, or rather acquaintances, for the occasion acting as though they didn't spend most of their years together laughing secretly at Molly's mousiness. Or maybe he's being uncharitable, he thinks to himself, and grits his teeth in a surge of unidentified annoyance. He already feels restlessness bubbling up behind his façade; there is something unbearable about the afternoon tipsiness radiating off the wedding party in the summer warmth, the feeling of idle champagne-and-gossip pervading everything.

 

“Strange, isn't it?” John says, frowning as he still looks in the direction that Molly took off in, and Sherlock isn't entirely sure what he's talking about.

 

*

 

“What's wrong?” Sherlock asks John later, folding his arms behind his neck and watching John undress with his back towards the bed.

 

“I don't know,” John says, sounding annoyed. He turns, and when Sherlock looks at him, raising his eyebrows a little, his face softens a fraction. “Just a bit tired, I guess. Been a long day.”

 

Sherlock is silent, trying to tease out what signals John is sending him and failing to bring them into order. His eyes fasten onto John's belt as the undoes the buckle; he's slightly taken by surprise by the stir of desire at the way John draws the leather through the metal clasp.

 

“Sure?” he finally asks, lifting his eyes back up to John's face.

 

“Yeah,” John says. “'m sure.”

 

The fatigue in his tone suggests that any advances will not be very warmly welcomed, so Sherlock just lets him crawl into his own space in the bed and doesn't invade it. When he thinks back at the whole day, something about it makes him feel uncomfortable, like he's missing something of vital importance.

 

“Night,” John says, on a sigh, and clicks off the light.

 

 

 

**September 2023**

 

One of the more uncomfortable things Sherlock was forced to confront about himself after John took a leap of faith and let him in – and also bound him to rules because of that – is that he truly has a tendency to lie to himself when something happens that he finds hard to understand. It's easy for a while to pretend that nothing changes after their conversation in the bedroom, that was so crammed full of things unsaid that he hardly remembers what they _did_ say (except that it wasn't, never, ever, what he thinks about and feels souring in his throat with disuse), but it becomes harder and harder with each passing month.

 

John is drifting away from him.

 

John likes his new colleagues a lot and takes a simple kind of pleasure in their simple kind of work, helping at the little problems of little people that he never really tells Sherlock about – Sherlock is quite aware that John thinks he would find it boring, and the worst part is that he's right. John goes to work and comes back and ruffles Sherlock's hair as a hello and laughs at Sherlock in his veiled hat when he comes in from tending the hives and constructs a feeding platter for the birds and goes to the pub with his closest colleague, Rajid, and listens to Sherlock think about cases. He does all those things, but he also looks at Sherlock with the contemplating and increasingly sad look of someone who isn't sure about something, but who has plenty of time to think, and at night, when Sherlock makes it upstairs, John is usually soundly asleep, body solid and warm and so, so far away.

 

Sherlock wonders if there is something he should do apart from the things he knows he should do but can't, and he wonders if this is normal, the way John smiles absently in the mornings and rubs his hand in a circle between Sherlock's shoulder blades before heading off to work, obviously thinking about something else – if this is simply another patch in the road in that largely unknown territory that he stumbled into when meeting John.

 

 

 

**January 2024**

 

“Like hell you are,” John snarls, kneeling over Sherlock with flashing eyes and pushes his bunched-up coat against Sherlock's collar bone, pressing down on the bullet wound forcefully. Sherlock blinks up at his out-of-focus face, momentarily confused, and then realises that he must have said something like _John, I'm going to die_.

 

“John, I,” Sherlock begins, trying again, because surely that wasn't what he was going for. His breath feels raw in his chest.

 

“Don't you fucking dare,” John growls, and pushes down on the wound with such strength that Sherlock lets out a little cry of anguish. “Don't you _fucking_ dare.”

 

*

 

When Sherlock comes to, John is asleep in a chair next to his hospital bed, the skin of his face ashen and shadowy with stubble in the eerie white light coming from the night-hushed corridor. Sherlock spends a few moments watching him, the way his head droops precariously as though he's about to tip over, and feels his chest tighten with an almost uncomfortable surge of deep, dark love.

 

He tries to work himself into a slightly more upright position, then hisses at the stabs of pain that shoot through his shoulder and abandons the effort.

 

“Fuck,” he mutters quietly to himself.

 

John makes a snuffling sort of noise, and jerks awake very suddenly. “Sherlock,” he says hoarsely, so immediately after coming awake that it almost seems like a reflex rather than a reaction to seeing Sherlock in his bed. He blinks a few times, eyelids raw-looking with lack of sleep. “How – how d'you feel?”

 

“Didn't mean to wake you,” Sherlock says, to hide the embarrassing flush of relief at hearing John's voice that has his eyes misting over with a sudden and unexpected film of tears. He averts his eyes so John won't see him blinking.

 

“Are you in pain?” John rasps, then clears his throat.

 

“Yes.” The deep, heartbeat-like ache in his shoulder is what woke him up in the first place.

 

“I'll call the nurse for you.” John stands up and stiffly reaches for the button dangling above Sherlock's head. “Your drip could use re-filling.”

 

In the short interval until the nurse arrives, John doesn't talk, but sits back in his chair, looking at Sherlock with bloodshot, wide eyes.

 

*

 

In the morning, John is a strange mix of affectionate and angry.

 

“I can't believe you went after him even though both Dimmock and I told you not to,” he snaps, peering in closely as an annoyed-looking nurse checks Sherlock's bandages. _I'm a doctor and he's my sodding life partner and I'm not going anywhere_ , John had said loudly when she'd primly asked him to leave earlier, which had left Sherlock a little warm on the inside.

 

“Maybe we can – discuss this later,” Sherlock says, wincing at the nevertheless gentle touches of the nurse.

 

“I have to go to work later,” John says tartly, and glares at Sherlock as though that's _his_ fault.

 

The nurse finishes the check-up and hurries out, throwing a furtively commiserating look at Sherlock as she leaves. It makes him smile a little; she doesn't understand how wonderful it feels to be the object of this particular face of John's ire.

 

“Don't smile!” John exclaims. “You could have been dead, you prick!”

 

“Thanks to you, I'm not,” Sherlock says, to stoke the fire a little more.

 

“Thanks to the fact that that bloke was a miserable shot, you mean!”

 

“That too.”

 

John makes an indistinct sound and wipes his hands down over his eyes. “You can't do this to me anymore, Sherlock,” he says then, softer, behind the cover of his hands. “I'm getting too old for this. It takes years off my life every time.”

 

Sherlock can't help but smile at him. “You live for danger and you know it.”

 

John shakes his head. “It's – not when it's _you_ , okay? You must understand that by now. It doesn't make me happy when you could _die_.”

 

Sherlock is quiet for a moment. He does know that – this isn't the first time this has happened, though it is the first time that he's brushed up so closely to mortal danger without John getting injured too, without them sharing the bruises and the pain and the secret thrill and the responsibility between them.

 

“You're not angry because I got hurt,” he says. “You're angry because you didn't.”

 

John looks disconcerted. “Not... exactly,” he says, but uncertainly.

 

“I mean,” Sherlock attempts to make it more precise, “you think it was irresponsible of me to disregard Dimmock's order, but even more than that you feel like you should have been there with me, disregarding it together.”

 

John sighs and deflates a little with it. “Finding you there bleeding was very difficult for me,” he says stiffly, and then licks his lips. “Yeah, you're probably right. I can't _lose_ you, okay? And the only way not to let that happen is if we _stick together_ in times like those.”

 

They look at each other. Sherlock dares: “This is – good, right?”

 

John frowns. “How is this good?”

 

“You...” Sherlock has to try again. “I thought you were... reconsidering.” He hesitates. “Me. Us.”

 

John's face does a very curious thing: it speeds through an array of emotions at once, and then falls completely, utterly flat. Sherlock recognises it for what it is: the proof that he is very, very close to a truth. He swallows hard with the confirmation of it.

 

“Jesus,” John says hoarsely, and brings a fist to his mouth, hiding it.

 

“It's okay,” Sherlock says, far more airily than he intended, and regrets it when John's eyes click to his, shocked. The silence stretches, and Sherlock doesn't know what to fill it with. “Didn't you have to go to work?” he finally says.

 

“I cancelled my shift,” John says, softly. “Or what did you expect, idiot.”

 

*****

 

Sherlock is discharged after three days; he is vaguely aware that is earlier than would be considered usual with an injury as serious as his and that the way his doctor is talking to John involves a lot of scandalised gesticulating from the doctor's part and a lot of nodding and soothing from John's part.

 

He doesn't care – he just wants to go home.

 

*

 

John helps him settle into the sofa, strongly rejects his request to be moved to the verandah (“Are you stupid, it's literally freezing in there!”), and spends some time studying the list of painkillers and wound dressings and bandages that the nurses drew up for him while Sherlock grumbles about the lumps in the cushions.

 

Then, posture very straight, John comes up to the sofa, struggles a little to get on his knees beside it, and rests his hands on the blanket on Sherlock's belly.

 

“I'm not – reconsidering,” he says, and looks at Sherlock. After a moment, he drops his glance, shoulders straightening even more. “It's, erm. I _was_.”

 

It feels like the hot cup of tea Sherlock had earlier has turned to ice water in his stomach. He watches John, the way John's hands are very quiet on the blanket.

 

“In a completely – theoretical and _unreal_ sort of way, I guess I was...” John huffs a small laugh, meets Sherlock's eye again. “Reconsidering. Yeah.”

 

“But not anymore,” Sherlock manages to say.

 

John shakes his head as if clearing it of some unwelcome thought. “I never – I was never _going to_ , okay? But you've been... you've been so distant lately, and –”

 

“ _I_ 've been distant?” Sherlock asks, frowning. “You're the one who's – always out with Rajid, or telling me that you need to do a double shift at a _private practice_ or constantly texting _–_ ”

 

John is looking at him with tired eyes. “That's it though, isn't it?” he says, calmly. “You want me to have no one but you.”

 

The accusation shocks Sherlock into silence.

 

“You think it's normal that I just drop everything for you, all the time,” John continues. “While you still forget everything I tell you, or rush off at a peep from the Met without even bothering to let me know, or completely reject me whenever _I_ feel like having sex at what you think is an inconvenient time. Which, I might add, is most of the time recently. Even after all these years, and all the times we've fought about that, you still think that's a normal balance.” He shakes his head. “I _like_ the practice, okay. I like helping out when I can. And I _like_ going to The King's Head with Rajid. That doesn't take away anything from you. I always tell you where I am, and I always come home to you.”

 

Sherlock narrows his eyes at John, but says nothing.

 

“We do have a problem, Sherlock,” John says, voice constricted. “We don't _talk_ anymore. We used to talk.”

 

Sherlock's throat is dry, and what he would want to say – _I don't always know how –_ joins all of the other things he should say, and can't. “I'm in a lot of pain,” he says instead, and then watches helplessly as John's face shutters and he nods, dropping his gaze to his hands on Sherlock's blanket.

 

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “You should rest.”

 

*

 

Surfacing from clammy dreams of rushing waterfalls and the feeling of falling, Sherlock half-remembers, half-invents an image of John leaning over him with a pinched, sad expression, saying “It used to be enough when it was just us.”

 

 

 

**April 2024**

 

Sherlock recovers. His wound becomes a neat pink depression in his flesh, just over his right collarbone, with a twin on the back of his shoulder he's studied intently in the mirror, where the bullet left him again. One evening, as John undoes his bandages, he very gently draws his fingers over it with the steady chasteness of the doctor, and says: “A lot prettier than mine. Figures.” He smiles at Sherlock, then sobers again. “You need to be careful, okay? It's always going to be a weak spot.”

 

Sherlock looks at him, at the strength of his presence in the soft lighting of their bedroom, and thinks _God, I know_.

 

 

 

**June 2024**

 

Sherlock tries, though he wonders if John notices at all. The truth is that he's set himself an alarm on his phone that goes off every time he receives a text from Dimmock's number, and it goes _DON'T FORGET TO TELL JOHN WHERE YOU ARE_. The truth is that he was planning on introducing a new queen to one of the hives one evening when John steps up behind him and nuzzles his nose into Sherlock's back, hands sliding across Sherlock's sides to come together on his chest. The truth is that he supposes it's worth it to postpone the queen to have John looking so soft and relaxed, running his fingers through Sherlock's hair until the tingle of it makes Sherlock's cock start to stir again surprisingly – but the truth is also that it makes him feel stressed, makes him feel like he's being assaulted from all sides with so many things, so many small and invisible things that he has to pay attention to. There was already _so much_. John doesn't understand what it's like, feeling all of those details clamouring out for attention, and knowing that there are even more he should always keep track of.

 

The _truth_ is that he comes through the front door after visiting Cecylia one Saturday afternoon and hears John, in the living room, saying to someone on the phone, voice low and secretive: “Look, right now it's – wait, I think Sherlock just came home. Have to go.”

 

 

 

**September 2024**

 

Of course, John's colleagues want him to deduce them. Sherlock takes John's warning look to heart.

 

“Well, with the data I have from you now,” he begins, brushing a glance over Peter, “I can tell that you've been on holiday somewhere in Southern Europe, judging by the intensity of your tan and the way you struggled a little getting your car into our driveway the right way – first time driving your own car again, I'd say. From your hands I can tell you still write your prescriptions with a pen, and also that you've been doing some work around the house – wood splinters, small paint spatters. I know you've got a child – daughter, I'd say, because she's got a horse and that makes her statistically more likely to be female – of about ten. I know that you cycle, though recently you haven't found as much time for it as you'd like, and I can tell you have a dog, about knee-height, probably a golden retriever going by the shade of the hairs.”

 

He smiles at Peter as he picks up a bruschetta, and says nothing about the fading tan line of the wedding ring, nor the disconcerting habit to shield his glass as he drinks, suggesting a developing dependency on alcohol. John sends him a minute smile of gratitude that nobody else sees.

 

“Extraordinary,” Peter says, his broad-blooming smile clearly genuine.

 

“But _how_?” May exclaims, leaning back in her chair and gazing at Sherlock in wonder.

 

“Got anything wrong?” Sherlock asks, instead of answering.

 

“Well,” Peter says, “the horse isn't strictly speaking Annie's. But other than that, yeah... Guilty as charged!”

 

“What a chap you've taken up with, John!” Will, May's husband, says jovially, clapping John on his bad shoulder – Sherlock frowns slightly at the small, instinctual wince that passes over John's face. “How on earth do you put up with him?”

 

“With infinite patience,” John says, and Sherlock can hear the vaguest inflection of discomfort in his voice. “And a constant eye out for blackmailing material for when I need him to behave.”

 

There's a ripple of laughter around the table, and John catches Sherlock's eye with a mildly apologetic smile. Sherlock answers it briefly – he doesn't mind. (It's also not untrue.)

 

The doctors eat with gusto, and Rajid waxes lyrical about the garden, especially commending Sherlock and John on using plants that many people would consider weeds. “So many people just fall into the completely false dichotomy between _plants_ and _weeds_ ,” he rants mildly, “while the designation of which are plants and which are weeds changes over time and is completely different in every culture. So many plants that have wonderful characteristics are vilified and it's a shame.”

 

“That's really all Sherlock's area,” John says, smiling, and puts a hand on the backrest of Sherlock's chair.

 

Sherlock looks up from his garlic bread to see expecting smiles. He shrugs. “I select the plants for the bees. I experiment with different types of flowering plants to see how it affects the thriving of the colonies and the taste of the honey – that's all, really. A child could do it.”

 

“Never thought I'd say this, but he's being too modest,” John says. “He's writing a book.” When Sherlock looks sideways at John, John smiles and squeezes his shoulder lightly.

 

“Just collecting some data for what _might_ be an article in the future,” he corrects, but revels in the softness of John's look at him, and the way the doctors are nodding in admiration.

 

*

 

After dinner, Will, Peter and Rajid go outside, Will and Peter to smoke a cigarette, Rajid, in his own words, to tell them off for setting a bad example. To remove the pull of temptation, though he hasn't smoked a cigarette in nearly three years, Sherlock takes it upon himself to clear the plates from the table. He notices as he passes to the kitchen that May and John are in the living room, talking closely together.

 

“That's so interesting,” he hears May say breathlessly, and he lifts an eyebrow in amusement before dropping the plates unceremoniously into the sink.

 

*

 

In their bedroom, John embraces Sherlock from behind as he's unbuttoning his shirt. Sherlock leans back against him, deeply enjoying the closeness of his body and the absence of any strain between them.

 

“Thanks for tonight,” John says, voice muffled into Sherlock's shoulder.

 

“I did nothing out of the ordinary,” Sherlock says, clasping John's hands on his chest with his own.

 

“You always do something out of the ordinary.”

 

Sherlock smiles. “I did nothing out of _my_ ordinary.”

 

John lets him go and Sherlock turns around to face him. “You know,” John says, face earnest, “without outside input, I sometimes forget how amazing it is what you do.”

 

“What we do,” Sherlock corrects; John discards it with a shrug.

 

Then he looks up at Sherlock, smiling, and starts undoing the rest of his buttons. Sherlock looks down at his hands with a raised eyebrow. “Doctor Watson, really. Such sexual aggression.”

 

“Shut up and kiss me,” John says, popping the final button, and Sherlock does.

 

 

 

**November 2024**

 

“For God's sake, John, I don't have all night,” Sherlock finally snaps, as John takes another detour to mouth slowly at the juncture of his hip and thigh, completely ignoring the hot and heavy weight of Sherlock's cock against his belly.

 

John's mouth on his skin stops moving. Sherlock immediately realises his mistake and he presses a hand to his forehead, silently cursing himself as John lifts himself off him slowly.

 

“You're joking, right?” John says, with an edge of coldness to his tone. “We haven't had sex in – I dunno – a month? And I don't think you've even kissed me once these past two weeks. And you want me to _get it over with_?”

 

Sherlock breathes out heavily and scrubs his hands over his eyes. He knows that tone, superficially calm but laced with danger, and he doesn't like it one bit. “Okay. John. I take it back,” he says. “It's fine. I shouldn't have said anything. Go ahead.”

 

John sits back and huffs an incredulous laugh, looking at Sherlock as though he's someone he's never seen before. “Do you really think I'm still going to suck your cock after you just told me to shove off? That's a bit pretentious, don't you think?”

 

“I didn't tell you to _shove off_ ,” Sherlock says, his temper prickling.

 

“You told me to hurry up so you could get off and get back to your work,” John says, raising his voice. “What's the point in that, Sherlock? Are you even interested in this at all?”

 

“Of course I am,” Sherlock says, but his erection is flagging, and John's face is set in a frustrated frown. They stare at each other for a long moment, the tension between them tight. Sherlock entertains the notion of apologising, but John is being tedious and frustrating and it's always the same old _tiring_ argument – and worst of all, John can always spot when Sherlock doesn't mean it, and that usually makes it worse.

 

“It's inconvenient, okay?” he bursts out. “I can feel that I'm close to breaking the lock on this case.”

 

“It's a fucking cold case, from _2019_ , for Christ's sake,” John snaps. “You can do it _later_.”

 

Sherlock stares up at him, feeling his jaw set in stubbornness. It's not like he ever gets credit for _trying_ , for recognising that yes, it has been a while and maybe he should make an effort; that isn't enough. John still doesn't get it.

 

“I don't get you sometimes,” John finally says, getting up from the bed, and Sherlock winces a little at the way his words line up with Sherlock's resentful thoughts. John's cock is still at half mast. Sherlock tries to reach out for him, annoyance sparring with guilt inside of him.

 

“Come on,” he says, “I'll do you.” He'll do it just like John likes it best: quick and dirty, with lots of tongue, and then John will be happy again and he can get back to figuring out the scarring on the victims' backs with minimal fuss.

 

“If you're going to make it sound like a favour, I'll pass, thanks,” John says sharply, and walks over to the bathroom door. “I'll do it on my fucking own. I'm used to that, aren't I?”

 

“Oh, for God's... it's not a favour,” Sherlock calls after him. “I want to do it!”

 

“Yeah, well, you can suck yourself off if you're really so keen,” John's voice, clear and angry, rings out from the bathroom.

 

Sherlock curses and gets off the bed, looking for his pants.

 

*

 

Hours later, when just before dawn the night becomes pale and see-through, Sherlock buries his face in his hands at his desk and thinks about how he used to think being wrong was an unnatural state for him, like he was wired differently than other people. Improved. Less defective. Less error margin.

 

There was a case, years ago: a young woman suffering from dissociative identity disorder who had killed her father, but who insisted that it hadn't been her, it had been one of the others, now again retreated to the back of her mind. Their mind. He'd been intrigued by her, by the switches, by how it happened faster when she was anxious. By how _normal_ she was – how normal all of them were, except for the fact that they lived together in the same body and struggled for control of it. He'd tried to imagine sharing his mind with someone else, who did things without his knowledge that would horrify him when he slid back into himself. He found he couldn't – imagine it, that is, which was a novel experience that prickled his nerves uncomfortably. _Must be terrifying_ , Lestrade had said, full of a weary compassion. _Someone else just taking over the wheel without even asking for the keys._

 

Sherlock, at his desk, breathes out. The house is quiet.

 

He thumbs through the scarring pictures one more time, unable to glean anything more from them than they have already yielded, and then slips up the stairs on socked feet, the inside of the house still night-dark, not yet touched by the tentative fingers of the dawn in the garden.

 

He slides between the sheets fully clothed, operating blind in the pitch dark of the bedroom, and finds the mass of John's body, bed-warm, anger-warm, awake.

 

“I do stupid things sometimes, and it's all me, it's no one else,” he tells John's back. It's always easier in the dark; he can almost pretend the words will fade away as the night does, replaced by something lighter and easier.

 

“How hard is it for you to swallow your fucking pride, really,” John says hoarsely. His body is tense against Sherlock's.

 

“Very hard,” Sherlock breathes and presses his mouth to John's neck.

 

“I've been waiting for you to come up all night, you prick,” John mutters, but doesn't move away from Sherlock.

 

“I know,” Sherlock says, muffled.

 

John doesn't say anything, but stretches back into him just a fraction, his shoulders slowly releasing some of their tension.

 

 

 

**January 1st, 2025**

 

“To, erm, to ten years,” Sherlock says to John, throat remarkably constricted as he hands over the shiny envelope he's been guarding in a drawer of his desk for months.

 

John raises his eyebrows in what looks like good-natured surprise, and glances up at Sherlock while undoing the paper glue carefully, as not to rip the glossy exterior of the envelope. He shakes the bundle of tickets out into his hands and stares at them for a second before comprehension blooms across his face.

 

“It's two entrance and two plane tickets,” Sherlock can no longer hold himself back. “I thought we should go together. It's that psychologist-neurosurgeon person you're so interested in, the one with his theory on language acquisition and infant neurological trauma, he's the main speaker. And we could – the plane tickets are open-ended. I hear Corsica is beautiful that time of year.”

 

John looks at him with shining eyes. “Sherlock,” he says, shocked. “The conference entrance fee alone was 270 quid a person, how did you even...”

 

Sherlock shrugs, smiling. “That opera murder case paid a little more than I let on to you.”

 

John seems genuinely disbelieving. “I... Jesus. That you even _thought_ of this, it's amazing. Thank you. Wow.” He eyes the tickets with wonder, but when he looks up at Sherlock, there is something strained in his expression.

 

“Well, er,” he says, “I didn't actually... if I'd known we were actually going to be celebrating this year, I'd've got you something too.”

 

“That's fine,” Sherlock hurries to say. “You've still got plenty of left-over credit from the five year mark when you tried to take me to that fancy fish place Mycroft recommended.”

 

John laughs a little, then seems a bit surprised by it. “Don't think I'll ever forget that.” He looks back down at the tickets. “It's amazing. Thank you, really.” He smiles at Sherlock, and if he drops the smile a bit too quickly to be entirely normal, Sherlock thinks he understands.

 

*

 

Except he doesn't.

 

When he comes into the living room, dressed for dinner at The King's Head, John is sitting on the sofa with his hands folded in front of his mouth.

 

“Are you okay?” Sherlock asks him, dropping himself into the sofa as well.

 

John is silent for a moment. Then, through the barrier of his entwined fingers: “I almost slept with someone.” He says it quietly, matter-of-factly, in the tone of a doctor giving someone bad news – but when he looks up at Sherlock, Sherlock can see the flash of trepidation in his eyes.

 

Sherlock exhales hard. “I knew it,” he forces out, even before any kind of feeling can manifest itself clearly from the sudden, hard pressure of shock in his chest. “Of course I knew it – I should have – but I didn't want to _think –_ ”

 

“Almost, okay?” John says. “I couldn't do it in the end.”

 

“In the end,” Sherlock echoes, the words nastier in his mouth than they were in John's. The main feeling separating itself from the others now is anger, a deep, harsh, ugly resentment. _I try so hard for you, and now you go and pull this._ “But you got close, then.”

 

“Yes.” John breathes in audibly through his nose, and removes his hands from his mouth to rest them on his thighs. He licks his lips. “Yes, we got close.”

 

“Who is it,” Sherlock says, incapable of making it a question. He wants to hear it – every sordid detail of it, every action that took John further away from him and closer to someone else. So he can _see_ it, turn it over in his mind, try to numb the sudden and knife-sharp hurt of it by covering it in facts. “Man or woman?” he demands, when John just looks up at him, eyes bright and shiny. “Tell me!” he snaps after a few seconds of silence.

 

John flinches a little, barely noticeable. “Woman,” he says finally.

 

“Of course. Is that the reason then?” Sherlock bites. “Still want to be a straight man? Be _normal_?”

 

John's jaw hardens. “You know that's not true.” His hands tighten into fists on his thighs. “I have _never_ committed myself more to a relationship than this one.”

 

“What happened then, hm?” Sherlock asks, the question bitter-tasting in his mouth. “Decided you missed breasts so much you couldn't live without them anymore?”

 

“Jesus,” John says, shaking his head. “You are so – so –”

 

“Right?” Sherlock supplies, then smiles a completely non-humorous smile when John's face tightens in frustration. “I can't believe you gave me all that flack about _being distant_ when you were happily getting off with someone else.”

 

John looks hard at him. “I never even _knew_ if monogamy meant anything to you at all.”

 

“I'd been celibate for ten fucking years when we met,” Sherlock hisses.

 

Though this isn't new information to John, he still flinches. “Not because you cared about monogamy,” he says.

 

“Because nobody mattered enough,” Sherlock says, through gritted teeth.

 

They sit looking at each other for a long moment. John deflates quite suddenly, his face crumpling. “I'm sorry,” he says, and presses his palms to his eyes. “I'm _sorry_. I didn't do it, I couldn't. I didn't _want to_ , okay.”

 

Sherlock swallows, some of his anger flushed out of him at the sight. “But you did want to at first.”

 

“Yeah, but... not really.” John pauses. “It was just friendly for a long time. I thought I missed... talking to someone, and having sex where it feels like the other person wants me too, and getting a response when I say something. And she – she listened, she was there. She understood. Her marriage is... not good.”

 

Sherlock presses his eyes closed, because he'd been _trying_ , and he thought things were... but in the meantime, John was unloading his heart to someone who _understood_ , because she was _also_ in an unhappy relationship. It's almost too much to bear, that thought.

 

John continues: “But it wasn't that. I realised that it – I miss _you_ , all right. I miss your fucking unbearable moods and your incredibly annoying habits and laughing with you over offensive things and watching you get excited over murder or fucking _bees_ and having sex with you for a long time until it feels like there's nothing else in the world.” He laughs a little, and when he looks at Sherlock, his eyes are misted over. “I tried to get back what _we_ had with someone else and of course it didn't work.”

 

Sherlock takes a deep breath, and swallows away a hard pebble of emotion in his throat. “But it can work,” he says, voice scratchy. “If it's us. If _we_ try.”

 

“We have been trying,” John says, sounding miserable.

 

“We can try harder,” Sherlock says, suddenly convinced that they can.

 

“Maybe,” John says, and wipes his thumbs over his eyes. “But, Sherlock. I just came close to doing something that I never thought I would do – to you or to... to anyone. And it still almost happened. I can't... Even if you can, I can't just let it go. I need to think.”

 

“ _You_ need to think?” Sherlock echoes, incredulous.

 

“Yes,” John says, and takes a deep breath. “I'm glad I didn't go through with it, but that I even wanted to in the first place means that something is very wrong between us.”

 

“So you're going to take a good hard look at whether you still want this? While _you_ 're the one who nearly broke all the rules in our relationship.”

 

John licks his lips. “Yeah.”

 

Sherlock gets up from the sofa, suddenly incapable of just sitting there. “And what if – what if _I_ decide that I don't want this anymore? That I can't forgive you for trampling over my efforts to do better for you?”

 

John glances at him, then drops the look. “Then that would be fair.”

 

“Fair,” Sherlock repeats. “ _Fair_.”

 

There is a lengthy silence. Finally, John says: “I'll find somewhere to stay for a couple of nights. I think some distance would do both of us good.”

 

 _Speak for yourself_ , Sherlock wants to say, but doesn't. “Fine,” he says instead, and turns to leave the living room, everything inside him screaming to leave this place and this excruciating conversation.

 

At the door, he turns. “It was May,” he says flatly.

 

John looks up. A tear has dripped a shiny trail over his left cheek while Sherlock's back was turned. “Yes,” he says, voice liquid. “She's leaving the practice. We agreed never to see each other again.”

 

Sherlock nods, and leaves the room without saying anything else, feeling nausea start to nestle in the pit of his stomach.

 

*

 

John packs a bag. The small size of it is somewhat reassuring to Sherlock, and he hates himself a little for it, for hanging onto a token so small. While John isn't looking, he slips the conference tickets between John's favourite jumper and the horrendous shirt he bought at Pompeii. He'd wanted to tear them in half for a rage-filled moment before, but managed to overcome the impulse. Now he just wants them out of his sight.

 

“I feel like I'm being punished,” he says, as John lingers on the front step.

 

“Please don't,” John says, looking wretched. “It's me who did this.”

 

“I did this too,” Sherlock says, miserably secure in the knowledge of it, and feels his throat constrict at the thought of the empty living room, the cold verandah, the bed without John sleeping in it.

 

“We'll be fine,” John says, and gives him a weak smile. “I'll call you.” He hesitates. “If you want.”

 

“Yes,” Sherlock says.

 

John is the one who hugs him, but it's Sherlock who doesn't let go when John starts to pull back.

 

“Bye,” John whispers in his ear, and tugs himself loose, gently, firmly.

 

_*_

 

“Happy fucking New Year,” Sherlock mutters to himself, watching from the freezing verandah how the night drops velvety over the garden. The window is spotty with frost, deforming the ghostly shapes of the fruit trees beyond.

 

He feels like crying. He puts a hand over his chest to check the impulse as it bubbles up from his lungs, but then realises he's completely alone, and lets it happen in a loud, shoulder-shockingly physical way that leaves his throat sore and that reminds him of his childhood – the memories that come with it are sharp: coming up from the pond in summer with his frog nets empty after a day of trying; being furious with Mycroft for going to boarding school and leaving him caught between the mental absence of Daddy and the claustrophobic presence of Mummy; the strange lingering sense of difference that had haunted him for his first weeks at school until he decided to wear it as a badge of honour. It hadn't been hard then to cry. At some point it became a failure of character, and for the life of him, he can't remember when.

 

 

 

**January 2025**

 

After three days of lodging in a seedy hostel where the mattresses clearly made his shoulder ache, John comes back.

 

He tells Sherlock, subdued and bleary-eyed: “If you still want to, so do I.”

 

Sherlock, feeling as though he's about to make a decision that has a double wall or a trap door somewhere, some extra space that he can't see and that contains something that will make itself known to him later, says nevertheless: “I have never stopped wanting to.”

 

They kiss in a way that Sherlock realises they haven't done in a long time: John on tiptoe, hands in Sherlock's hair, and an unhurried press and slide of their tongues against each other, just the laziness of a goal in itself. Sherlock can _taste_ John's relief, and it makes him press closer, slip a hand between John's shirt and his jumper, into the ever-steady, never-wavering warmth of him.

 

 

 

**March 2025**

 

For a few weeks they are cautiously, optimistically happy, or at least so it seems to Sherlock; John kisses him in the morning, seeming truly glad to see him, they talk about their impending trip to Corsica, and John comes along for one of the more thrilling cases of multiple homicide the Met has seen in years – which of course brings them together the way it always has: a well-oiled team, both high on the adrenalin of it, feeling alive and capable and _embodied_. The sex when they fall into bed after that is frantic and deeply good in a way that has John saying afterwards, the pressure of the pillow pushing his mouth and cheek out of shape: “I didn't think I could still _do_ that, my God.”

 

But the cracks begin to show soon. One day John comes home morose and silent, and spends nearly an hour standing up in the verandah, hands clasped behind his back, looking out over the still-bare garden. Sherlock guesses May must have officially left the practice – Peter and Rajid wouldn't have understood why, and would have probably thrown her something of a goodbye party. It feels disgusting to Sherlock to even think about, and he doesn't go into the verandah to ask John what's wrong. John is quieter after that, and somehow Sherlock is angrier than he was before, sudden bursts of resentment towards John for what he did sometimes surfacing out of nowhere and colouring the way he speaks to John: dismissive, even venomous at times. John accepts it with the air of someone thinking they deserve something, which makes Sherlock want to shake him until he says something back, so at least they'd have something to fight about.

 

He recalls with painful clarity that he said _we can try harder,_ but sometimes, when he sees John looking at him with a careful calculation that he never had before, he wonders not if he _can_ , but if he wants to.

 

 

 

**April 2025**

 

“For God's sake,” John snaps on the plane, and forces his phone into Sherlock's face. “I'm just texting _Harry_ , okay? Read it, then, if you're so keen!”

 

Sherlock sinks back, kicking a foot at the seat in front of him, and grits his teeth – angry at John, equally as angry at himself.

 

*

 

“Sorry,” he manages later, as they wait for a taxi at the small airport, blinking in the haze that shimmers on the tarmac.

 

“Me too,” John says, sounding tired, and brushes a hand over Sherlock's shoulder. Sherlock looks at him, and feels his chest tighten at the way John seems as out of focus as the rest of the place, the edges of him blurring with warmth.

 

*

 

Corsica is beautiful, that much is true.

 

Sherlock goes to the first few conference lectures with John, but the following discussions fail to really grab his attention.

 

He goes on walks, instead, picking a path over the island's coast, and discovers an interior that is far wilder than the soft-sanded rim suggests, and enjoys himself trying to sort out the French from the Italian in the locals' quick-vowelled speech.

 

“Missed you today,” John tells him later, in bed, glancing up at him over the rim of his newly-acquired reading glasses. (Sherlock had wanted to laugh at him, and had at the same time felt a strange reluctance to.)

 

“So did I,” Sherlock says as he steps out of his trousers, and as he folds them, he wonders quietly if John says those things because he feels the pressure to say them as keenly as Sherlock does.

 

*

 

They have sex once in that small hotel room, where the bed is narrow enough to force them into each other's space during sleep – John pants at Sherlock to fuck him, which they haven't done in a long time – years, even – because John doesn't usually enjoy it that much. Sherlock suspects it has to do with showing himself willing, showing that he will compromise too, and he appreciates the gesture more than he would've thought. He'd almost forgotten how intimate it is to slide into John, feel and taste the heat on the inside of him, feel the tremors of his body as his muscles flutter.

 

“Don't leave me,” he breathes without thinking about it into John's hair, fucking him with deep, slow strokes, the hotel bed squeaking a regular protest beneath them that at any other time would've surely made them collapse into giggles.

 

John doesn't reply, just wraps an arm around Sherlock's shoulders and tugs him down, slowing down the rhythm of his hips even more, as he licks upwards into Sherlock's mouth.

 

 

 

**August 2025**

 

Even while they're having it, Sherlock realises this is the worst fight they've ever had; not precisely because of what they're saying (though there is that), but because of the strain and tension of the past months behind each word, the echoes of past meaning behind everything they say, the growing gravity of a love going moth-eaten with holes.

 

John had gone to the pub with Rajid, an occasion that invariably made Sherlock tense these days, and had come home – not drunk, but the two or three pints he did have had a disproportionate effect on the emotional constraints he submitted himself to nowadays. Body loose and breath beery, he'd leaned against Sherlock, who was working in the verandah. Sherlock had felt a stab of distaste at the clinginess of John's limbs that surprised him, but he couldn't just will it away.

 

John, aware that his clumsy advances were being met with a rather cold lack of reciprocation, had started talking. “Why can't you just let me have something for me,” he murmured, almost as if continuing a conversation that must have taken place chiefly in his mind. “Why can't you just _let me go_ for one evening.”

 

Sherlock, who had in fact been tempted to check up on John by way of text, but who had forced himself not to, feels his anger, never far from the surface these days, flare at the accusation.

 

“For fuck's sake, John,” he snaps, twisting away a little from the contact between them. “Stop forcing yourself on me.”

 

There is a stunned silence, in which John folds his body away entirely. When Sherlock looks up at him, he looks rather sober. “You did not just say that,” John says.

 

Sherlock lets out a hard breath. “I'm _working_. I don't need your drunken antics around me right now.”

 

“Drunken antics,” John repeats, voice flat. “Just because you don't have any friends to do it with –”

 

“Yes, I tend to not _do it_ with friends, no,” Sherlock hisses, rolling his chair away a little from his desk. “But then I suppose that's your style, right John? Befriend people until they _fall for you so fucking hard_ they could never go back, and then pretend it's not serious?” He's aware that what he's saying lacks any kind of real sense or connection to the present situation, but it's a very vague kind of awareness, pushed to the bottom of his consciousness by the hot flare of his anger.

 

John stares at him, eyes going wide. “You are not human,” he finally says. “That you – that you can hang onto that for _so long_ , it's – it isn't normal, it's –”

 

“ _Normal_ ,” Sherlock says loudly, scathingly, triggered by the word. “You like to pretend you don't need me as much as I need you, but you _fucking_ know you do,” he hisses, slamming down his fist on the wood of his desk. “You need me just as much, John, you need me _just as fucking much_. You like to pretend you're the normal one, the adjusted one, but we both know it's a _farce_. Before me you had _nothing_.”

 

John looks down on him, jaw working, but he doesn't speak.

 

“You don't need to prove that you don't need me by leaving,” Sherlock continues, “because we both know you can't. You'll be back within the year.”

 

John opens his mouth, and after a long moment, closes it again. His eyes are unreadable, his shoulders straight. For a moment he drops his gaze to the floor. Finally he looks up, pins Sherlock with a deep, dark look of disgust, and turns to leave.

 

*

 

The anger stays as a hot, heavy rock in his belly for a while, but the dark night pressing against the glass and the stony silence from the house succeed in cooling it down bit by bit, until he sits at his desk, massaging the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and thinks, with a desperate sinking sort of feeling inside him: _shit._

 

He gets up and goes to the kitchen, and is actually completely surprised to find John there in the dark, just outside the pool of light spilling in from the living room, leaning against the counter with a glass of water in his hand.

 

John tips it up to him in a sort of greeting. “Just trying to get rid of my drunken antics,” he says, and only the edge of bitterness to his words suggests that anything is wrong with him. “So I don't go off and force myself on someone else. Be a little awkward.”

 

Sherlock is struck mute by the unexpectedness of his presence.

 

John doesn't necessarily seem to expect him to speak. “I've heard you say a lot of painful things to me or to others that never really surprised me,” he says, calmly. “But I think you just surprised me.” His eyes, when he lifts them to Sherlock's, seem empty in the gloom. Tired. “Sometimes I forget how much of an unimaginable bastard you can be when you try.”

 

Sherlock wipes his fingers over his forehead, more out of a physical need to give his hands something to do than anything else. As the situation recedes from him more and more, he starts to see how he'd been boiling with frustration all evening, and how nothing John said had actually warranted the kind of poisonous response he'd given.

 

“Look,” he begins, unsure.

 

John takes a gulp of water and looks at him over the rim of his glass. Sherlock falls silent under the weight of his gaze. John swallows, then says: “You didn't have anything either, before me.”

 

Sherlock considers it. “No,” he finally says, finding it surprisingly hard to admit, with John in the gloom of their night-time kitchen.

 

“Then why did you make it sound like _you_ saved _me_?”

 

“Because I did,” Sherlock says quietly.

 

John huffs a small laugh, and looks away from him. “And I don't suppose you can see how that doesn't mean that I _depend_ on you for everything?” His eyes come back to Sherlock's face. “Yes, I was going to kill myself in that fucking bedsit fifteen years ago. Yes, meeting you gave me back a sense of living that I'd lost. Yes, you pretending to commit suicide nearly destroyed me and yes, I _still_ couldn't manage to stay away from you after that, even though any sane person would have. That still doesn't mean I will accept just anything from you, you _fuck_.”

 

Sherlock takes a breath. “I know,” he says. “You shouldn't. I was – wrong to say those things.”

 

“Yeah,” John says, softly, and takes another gulp of water. His glass is nearly empty. He eyes it for a moment, then looks up. He's silent for so long Sherlock starts to think he must be waiting for Sherlock to say something, but just as Sherlock is gathering the words of an apology in his mouth, John starts talking again. “I can't do this anymore, Sherlock,” he says, no harshness at all in his words now, just a soft, tired sense of _giving up._ “I just can't.”

 

Sherlock bites down on his lips and brings his hands up to them, palming them out of habit. Somewhere inside him something whispers _he's right to leave and you know it._

 

“Me neither,” he breathes, and watches as John looks at him, the light from the living room reflected in his eyes.

 

 

 

**September 2025**

 

Somehow, John making the decision to leave makes it a bit easier for them to talk without fighting. The old sores are there, and so is the persistent ache inside Sherlock that says _you cannot let him leave, stop him, stop him_ , but somehow they manage to avoid hurting each other more. They spend the final weeks as John prepares to move out (“No, _shut_ _up_ , you're staying here, you fucking love this place and I don't think I could stand it here –”) being cautious but very nearly kind to each other. John says, at one point: “You know what, I think this might be the first time you've actually let me see you cry without trying to hide it.” He looks a bit disbelieving at it.

 

Sherlock learns, gradually, as the days pass, that he shouldn't expect all this to change much about the situation. John finds it easier, he understands, to be around him now that he knows he'll be leaving.

 

As for himself, he finds it nearly unbearable, the thought of the house without John, and has never before in his life felt such an urgent pressure to savour the moments he has left. He said to John in the kitchen that he couldn't carry on like this either, but the truth is that he would give anything to try again, to just have one last chance to get it right.

 

But he knows, and he knows John knows, that he'd probably get it wrong again.

 

*

 

John doesn't cry.

 

Or if he does, he doesn't let Sherlock see it.

 

Sherlock isn't sure which is worse.

 

*

 

Sherlock doesn't need to turn around to know John has stepped into the verandah. It's pleasantly warm under the glass dome; the September day outside is mellow and bright and optimistic. He'll need to check the hives later.

 

“Sherlock,” John says, quietly, and clears his throat. “Sherlock, I'm going.”

 

Sherlock takes a quiet breath and turns around. John is leaning against the door frame, favouring his good shoulder. The lines in his face are tight.

 

“I wish you wouldn't,” Sherlock says simply.

 

John deflates a little. He steps into the verandah, into the circle of light. “I can't go back now,” he says, restrained. “You know that.”

 

Sherlock closes his eyes for a moment, and feels the warm, drowsy waves of the sun falling through the dome wash over him in indifference. He can't help but try one last time, the caution of the past weeks dropping away now that the reality of John leaving looms large and tangible. “You're happy here. This is your home. You're happy with _me_ ,” he says.

 

John shakes his head a little, wary. “You know it's not that simple.”

 

“There's no one. You know it.” Sherlock looks at John. “There is _no one_ else who could ever do for you what I do for you.”

 

John frowns and hauls up his shoulders. “There's _me_ ,” he says. “And maybe it's just that. Maybe I should be alone for a while.”

 

“You're not happy without me,” Sherlock says, abandoning caution, and steps forward. “You can't do without me. You _know_ that, John. Why are you –”

 

John huffs a laugh, small and bitter. “Yeah, you'd say that, wouldn't you? I have to _try,_ okay. And you _have_ to let me go.”

 

Sherlock's eyes are stinging. “I can try too,” he says, throat tightening. “I can try _more_. You can't...” He shakes his head, trying to sort out the words. “I can try again, if you – if you –”

 

“Stop,” John says, and exhales hard. “You know it's – it's not _you._ It's _us._ ” He stops and frowns at the words, like he hadn't meant to say them, and pinches his lips shut.

 

Sherlock doesn't know what to do with the silence between them. He wants to touch John; a painful desire to sample something of him to keep, to keep and look at under the cold light of his absence. But John has drawn lines around himself in the past weeks and has kept carefully inside them, slowly letting the bonds between them slacken and relax. Sherlock had been able to do nothing but powerlessly hang onto his end, feeling how every day, John cut more of himself loose.

 

“I should go,” John says, pulling his car keys out of his pocket.

 

“I love you,” Sherlock blurts out, completely without premeditation.

 

John blinks.

 

Sherlock freezes.

 

The words fall without anything to catch them. Immediately, he wants to gather them back up, swallow them back in – a panicky response that takes him by surprise with its strength. They look at each other for a long moment. Sherlock's heart is pounding a rhythm of warning in his skull. John's eyes are a hard blue, his face stubbled and shadowy with stress.

 

“Yeah,” John says finally. “I know that.” He wipes his hands slowly down his face over his eyes; when they come away he looks almost angry, despite the sheen of tears in his eyes. “Please don't make this any harder,” he says, clipped, biting down on the words as though he's afraid of what they might do if he doesn't keep them under control.

 

“You're the one who's making it hard,” Sherlock says quickly, then regrets it, insides still reeling with a turbulent unease. He brings his hand to his lips to protect the vulnerability of what he just let fall out of his mouth from John's gaze. It doesn't work. He feels flayed, he feels de-boned and laid out to dry.

 

John is watching him. “You'll be fine,” he says, and sounds like he actually believes it.

 

Wordlessly, Sherlock shakes his head. He looks at John, and feels it, deep in the marrow of his bones: the beginning frost of a life without John, and the cold, hard knowledge that he tried, and tried, and tried, and still couldn't make it work.

 

John straightens even more. “I can visit. If you want.”

 

Sherlock doesn't know which idea is worse: John coming over for tea and stilted conversation in the house that used to be theirs, or John never coming over at all. He shakes his head, almost speechless at the horror of it all.

 

“Okay,” John says, always John, good and soft and sharp and damaged John, John who despite everything fits so perfectly into the fault lines of who Sherlock is, as though they were bruised up together before life began and were then put on the planet, blindly looking for each other, and cracking each other just a little more each time they got caught in each other's orbit.

 

John leaves, with seven cardboard boxes of clothes and books loaded into the back of the Honda.

 

Sherlock stays, and looks on as the bright day sobers into an evening of low, orange-coloured clouds.

 

 _Day zero_ , he thinks, for no discernible reason, and closes his eyes against the sky, blushing over the trees as if ashamed.

 

 

 

**October 2025**

 

For a while it feels like moving through treacle. Time seems to have a different quality to it. He feels like he's always sleeping, yet he doesn't ever feel rested; he has trouble focusing on his work and has to fight, exhausting moment after exhausting moment, the persistent thought that none of it is _worth it._ He neatly files away the thought that if he were to tell John about his fitful, exhausting nights and the way he feels during the day, John would ask him questions carefully probing for other symptoms of depression.

 

_Do you sometimes feel as though there's no point in getting up?_

 

Well fucking spotted, doctor.

 

Despite the lethargy, Sherlock becomes aware that Dimmock and the newly promoted DI Gregson are feeding him all sorts of easy cases, cases that the Met would have no problem solving on their own and that take Sherlock no more than a few hours each.

 

When confronted with it, Dimmock frowns. “Why do you think, Holmes? Half the department thinks you're going to off yourself. For real this time.” He taps a pencil against his desk. “Don't want that on my precious time. We've got enough stiffs here as it is.”

 

“Not to worry, inspector, I'd make it a clear-cut suicide case that would never require the attention of the homicide department,” Sherlock says in a moment of wry humour, and then wishes he could take it back when Dimmock pins him with a naked, undisguised look of concern.

 

*

 

Cecylia looks him up and down when she opens the door for him, then soundlessly presses three leashes into his hands and lets him take out the fiercest of the dogs. The combined strength of their forceful bodies makes the handles bite into his flesh and makes his thigh muscles burn with the strain of holding them back.

 

That night, for the first time in weeks, he sleeps deeply. When he wakes up he thinks he's at Baker Street for a long, blissful moment.

 

 

 

**November 2025**

 

Of course he's not going to kill himself. He's never thought of that as a solution to anything. Death is like a great, unknowable void – he's never thought of emptiness as a soothing state. It's always been fullness he's after.

 

There is that, and there is also that he knows that if he did, John, by force of sheer will, would gather all of his dispersed atoms back together and perform some sort of medical voodoo to bring him back to life and then kill him all over again with his bare hands.

 

It's only amusing to think about for a minute. Then it becomes uncomfortable, and after that it becomes nearly unbearable.

 

 

 

**December 2025**

 

Sherlock gathers he must really appear to be very unwell, because Mycroft sends him an e-mail inviting him to come up and spend Christmas with him and Mummy at the mansion. He ends it with _P.S. Please do not be your usual self and read this message as a tool to manipulate you into something you don't want. We really would like to see you. Mummy especially, you know how she misses you this time of year._

 

He thinks about deleting it outright, but something about the tone of it makes him reconsider. He sends back _Thank you, Mycroft, but I have plans._

 

He doesn't at that moment, of course, but he drops in on Cecylia, and comes home with recipes for traditional Polish Christmas baking to peruse for something that he'd like. She'd asked, in her telegram style, if the dogs could come, and, thinking of the bees, Sherlock had suggested they use her house. He's rather looking forward to dinner amongst the dead animals of her living room, and it's a feeling he hasn't experienced in a while.

 

John sends him an _All right? J_ that hurts him far more than is rational.

 

But yes. He supposes that all things considered, he's all right, and he tells John so.

 

*

 

At night, he often wakes up with his chest tight, the slimy tentacles of nightmares still sticking to him, and gropes for the familiar comfort of John's body – he doesn't know what it says about him that the disappointment is still as breathtakingly sharp now as it was the first night.

 

*

 

He reads somewhere, in a magazine he only picked up because it tangentially reminded him of Molly, that it takes about half the time a long-term relationship has lasted to completely get over its ending.

 

He looks at the calendar on the wall of the kitchen, stuck perpetually at 2022, because neither he nor John had really cared about replacing it.

 

“Cheer up. Only 1,783 days left to go,” he says to himself, and smiles humourlessly at his reflection in the kitchen window.

 

 

 

**January 1st, 2026**

 

Sherlock spends the first six hours of 2026 drinking himself into a stupor with the bottles of beer John left in the basement, and the subsequent eight alternately puking and hating himself. He can hear the shrill alarms of danger inside his head that tell him like they're talking about someone else: _breakdown_. _breakdown. breakdown._

 

By the end of the first day of the new year, he's poured all of the bottles of alcohol in the house down the drain, and sits in the sofa in the living room, skull hammering, and tells himself that this will never, ever happen again.

 

 

 

**February 2026**

 

Peter stops by.

 

“John doesn't live here anymore,” Sherlock says automatically, instead of hello.

 

“Yes, I know,” Peter says, hands in his pockets. “He told me.”

 

“Oh,” Sherlock says intelligently. They stare at each other for a moment. “Would you... like to come in?” Sherlock asks, frowning a little.

 

“Please,” Peter says, looking relieved.

 

*

 

Sherlock rummages through the kitchen cupboards looking for tea, and eventually has to settle for bringing Peter a glass of tap water. Peter doesn't seem to mind.

 

“Look, erm,” he says, seemingly unable to take his eyes off the framed newspaper article about the elephant tusk case that featured rather a large and unflattering picture of Sherlock getting smacked in the face by the smuggler and that John, doubled over in laughter, had _insisted_ they put up in the living room at Baker Street and that he'd even, with some ceremony, put up again after they moved house. (“So we can have a good laugh every morning before work.”) Sherlock follows his gaze, and has to avert his own. “I know we don't know each other well, or anything,” Peter continues, “but I know it must be tough for you right now. I just... I got out of my marriage myself a while back, and I thought, if you want... we can talk.”

 

Sherlock looks at him. “Are you hitting on me?” he asks, narrowing his eyes.

 

Peter smiles, a self-conscious kind of smile. “No,” he says. “John's my friend. I don't hit on my friends' ex-husbands.”

 

“We weren't married,” Sherlock says automatically. Peter shrugs. “Did he ask you to come to me, then? If you're such friends?”

 

“Sort of.” Peter looks supremely unashamed. “He's worried.”

 

“Yes, well,” Sherlock says. “If he were really so worried, he could always come and see me himself.”

 

“He said you didn't want him to.”

 

Sherlock doesn't dignify it with a reply; though it is an accurate representation of what he told John the last time John suggested they get a coffee, it isn't an accurate representation of how he really feels – but then Peter can't know that. Peter doesn't seem to mind the silence that falls. “Okay if I smoke?” he says after a while.

 

Sherlock is about to say _outside_ , but then remembers John doesn't live here anymore, and he could have people graffiti'ing the walls in here if he wanted to. “Go ahead.”

 

Peter smokes his cigarette slowly, and only leaves once it's finished. “So is it okay if I pop round again sometime?” he asks at the door.

 

“I don't particularly enjoy being the object of a suicide watch,” Sherlock says, frowning.

 

“Don't be ridiculous,” Peter says, in that bracing, reassuring way of all doctors. “Everyone needs someone to talk to. Me included.”

 

It makes him a little angry, to watch Peter walking away towards the road, but when he closes the door, the silence of the house almost makes him want to call after Peter to come back. “Okay,” he tells the thin air. “Feel free to stop by anytime.”

 

If it's pathetic, he rather feels as though he passed that point a long time ago.

 

 

 

**July 2026**

 

It becomes clear how intimately his life was entwined with John's when he tries to simply blot John out of the routine of the everyday and go back to how things were, _before_. When he thought he could easily subsist on a diet of intellectual stimulation, little sleep, food as basic fuel, and the reliability of his own mind.

 

It doesn't work. He recalls that he was never lonely, that he was certain that his element lay in being isolated from the tiring and exasperating interference of others. He remembers how that was one of the more remarkable things about his early acquaintance with John: that his moments of being alone were now regularly off-set against his moments of being with John, and that the quality of them changed dramatically, and that – even then – loneliness was a concept that was gaining a shape and definition it had never had before.

 

 

 

**October 2026**

 

It does get easier, of course it does.

 

It just doesn't go away. It's never away. He wonders at it, with a detachment he's mastered in recent months, at the way everything in the house still reminds him of John, and how even new experiences constantly impress on him the absence of John, as though Sherlock is living with the negative of him now, the black hole where he used to be, and that bends away all of the light.

 

He hears from John, now and then – texts, the occasional longer message via e-mail. Nothing too clearly emotional. Sherlock wonders if John, like himself, sometimes starts composing messages and then deletes them again, reminded of the fact that there is this unspoken rule between them that they shouldn't upset each other's fragile new balance with actual news of how they _really_ are. _(John, the house is hard to bear without you. Talking to people other than you just reinforces my belief that there was only one person I could ever have been with. I have never known this sort of regret. I can't sleep and when I do I wake up and expect you to be there, even after more than a year.)_ He hopes this is the case, because the alternative – John never thinking about Sherlock that way – is even more upsetting. He responds to all of John's messages but usually finds there isn't much to say about him or what he's doing – _Solved cases. Boring. Still don't sleep much when I want to. Frustrating. –_ and refrains from asking John to come back. He'll take whatever victories he can get.

 

 

 

**December 2026**

 

Cecylia has gone to Guatemala for the holiday period. (Sherlock is privately amazed at her, at the way she makes it seem like it's normal, a deaf eighty-four-year-old lady travelling halfway across the world to take a stand for abused animals.)

 

Filled with the deepest self-loathing, but aware of his growing fear for the dark hole of what lies ahead, he accepts Mycroft's invitation to Christmas with him and Mummy.

 

 

 

**December 25th, 2026**

 

_John, help. I'm at a Christmas_

_dinner with my mother and_

_Mycroft._

_S_

 

 

_What have you gone crazy?_

_How can I help?_

_J_

 

 

_Text me anything. Anything._

_They're talking about how_

_to raise turkeys._

_S_

 

 

_Ok um I had a dream last_

_night you and I were in the_

_sewers looking for a skull_

_and you told me to hold_

_your legs so you could_

_look underwater_

_J_

 

 

_That wasn't a dream, that_

_happened._

_S_

 

 

_Well I dreamt about it ok_

_More?_

_J_

 

 

_Yes. They're talking about_

_tax evasion amongst Armenian_

_immigrants now. Mycroft is_

_really excited._

_S_

 

 

_Had a patient yesterday_

_with a marble lodged up_

_his nostril. I think he'd been_

_trying to do cocaine where_

_his children had been_

_playing. Very jumbled story_

_J_

 

 

_What an idiot._

_S_

 

 

_Yeah really stupid bloke._

_More?_

_J_

 

 

_Please._

_S_

 

 

_Harry's getting married_

_again in September_

_J_

 

 

_Oh?_

_S_

 

 

_Yeah Annabelle proposed_

_J_

 

 

_Well, I guess I win that_

_bet, then._

_S_

 

 

_I know but they actually seem_

_really happy so_

_J_

 

 

_I'm sure. Where are you?_

_S_

 

 

_My flat_

_J_

 

 

_Alone?_

_S_

 

 

_Yeah H & A were here_

_but they left a while ago_

_J_

 

 

_Look if you're close you can_

_finish off here if you want_

_J_

 

 

_Ok I didn't mean that_

_to sound so sexual. I_

_meant a drink of course_

_J_

 

 

_Sherlock seriously can_

_you reply_

_J_

 

 

_You don't have to if you_

_don't want to it was just_

_an offer ok_

_J_

 

 

_Sorry, was too busy sharing_

_my view on imported fur_

_wear. Riveting stuff, I assure_

_you. Mycroft says hello. I_

_want to, but it's a four-hour_

_drive in this weather and I've_

_had too much wine._

_S_

 

 

_Ok, that's fine. Hope you_

_don't kill each other_

_J_

 

 

_Text me if you need me_

_J_

 

(Sherlock laughs a little at that, a private, bitter laugh that Mycroft and Mummy ignore.)

 

 

 

**May 2027**

 

“Good one, Holmes,” Gregson says, giving Sherlock one of his cheeky grins as he claps the cuffs onto the subdued suspect. “Finally have this fucker where he deserves to be. We should celebrate with a beer, whaddoyasay?” Even six years in London haven't done much to change the flat juiciness of his south-western American vowels. Gregson was one of the thousands who'd come to Europe after Europe had struggled out of the decade-long crisis, while America just kept on spinning deeper and deeper. Sherlock thinks the accent must be a way of preserving identity of some kind.

 

“Thank you, inspector,” Sherlock says, as the adrenalin dies down inside him, and the signals of distress from his muscles start to make it through to his brain. “But I've got other things to do.”

 

As always, when he's back home in the silence of the house, flipping through the professor's books until they start to frustrate him, he tells himself to say yes next time.

 

 

 

**August 2027**

 

_From:_ [ _j.watson@gmail.com_ ](mailto:j.watson@gmail.com)

_To:_ [ _sh@thescienceofdeduction.co.uk_ ](mailto:sh@thescienceofdeduction.co.uk)

 

_Subject: hey_

 

_It's just a question, ok, so just tell me if you don't want to, but I was wondering if you want to come to Harry's wedding? She was asking after you. Says she misses your ugly face (her words, of course). And I just thought maybe it'd be nice._

_J_

 

 

_From:_ [ _sh@thescienceofdeduction.co.uk_ ](mailto:sh@thescienceofdeduction.co.uk)

_To:_ [ _j.watson@gmail.com_ ](mailto:j.watson@gmail.com)

 

_Subject: RE: hey_

 

_She must be thinking of someone else, then._

 

_Yes, I'll come._

 

_S_

 

 _\----------_  
  
Sherlock Holmes

_Consulting Detective_

_http://www.thescienceofdeduction.co.uk_

 

 

 

**September 2027**

 

“Hullo, Sherlock,” Harry says, red-cheeked, flashing him a smile. “Nice suit.”

 

“Only marginally nicer than yours,” Sherlock says, saluting her with his glass of juice.

 

“Bastard. This suit is the best suit in the room.” She smooths down one of her jacket sleeves with a hand; it really is a nice suit, tailored to her expertly, executed in a soft-looking, elegant dark blue material. “What can I say? Didn't want to do it in a dress this time,” she says, a bit wryly.

 

“Clara had you in a dress? No wonder you got divorced.”

 

“You're a prick,” she says calmly, “and don't talk about Clara. It's my wedding day. I don't want to think about her.”

 

“Noted,” Sherlock says, and they stand together for a moment, looking at the bustle of the reception. John is talking to a distant Watson family member, from his father's side by the look of his nose, looking vaguely uncomfortable, and Annabelle, in a modest dark blue dress that matches Harry's suit, is dancing with her brother in the centre of the dance floor. The silence between Sherlock and Harry is easy. After all these years, it's almost impossible not to appreciate each other to some extent; John had groaned when they'd actually started enjoying goading each other and had called it _the inevitable realisation that you're so different you're almost actually the same_ , which Sherlock had logically pointed out made no sense whatsoever. It's been more than two years now since they've spoken, but the easy sense of mutual acceptance has remained.

 

“How're you getting on?” Harry finally asks him, quietly.

 

“Fine,” he says, the word almost physically painful to say.

 

She hums thoughtfully, and he's reminded, uncomfortably, of John. “You know, when Clara first left...” she begins, and he winces a little. She notices, and pins him with an authoritative look. “When Clara left,” she reprises with emphasis, “I felt like I wasn't worth fuck-all. Like I'd deserved it completely.”

 

“Yes, well,” he says, and only barely manages to swallow down the _you were an alcoholic who was barely ever conscious, so you can hardly blame her._

 

“I know what you want to say,” she says, her tone hard. “But what _I_ want to say is that it wasn't true. It was impossible and of course she was at her wits' end, and I've forgiven her long ago. Thing is, I only managed to forgive _myself_ a long time after.”

 

He looks at her, frowning. “Harry, I – er – appreciate you dredging up old memories, but I don't see how –”

 

“You don't _deserve_ to be left alone, okay, 's all I'm saying.” She looks out over the reception with a hard-edged look that he recognises all too intimately. “It might not have worked, and maybe it's even for the best. I don't know. But it's not because you _failed_.”

 

He grips his drink until he imagines he can feel the glass creak under his fingers, and eases the pressure. “Thought you didn't want to talk about Clara,” he says.

 

“I don't.” She turns and smiles at him. “But I think it's important that you talk about John.”

 

“There's not very much to say, is there?”

 

A brief silence. “You know,” she begins cautiously, “John's my brother and all that, and it's just a matter of principle that I'm on his side, even when I pretend not to be. It's been that way since his first schoolyard brawls. I gave him hell for joining the army, but I ripped out the throat of anyone else who criticised him for it. That's how it is. But this time...” She shakes her head. “I think he did the wrong thing.”

 

Sherlock takes a sip of his drink. There isn't much else to do.

 

“I've always believed more than John in all this mushy stuff –” she waves a vague hand around, “– but somehow I'd always felt like he got closer to it than I did.” She fixes Sherlock with a slightly sad look. “The way he fell for you, even years before anything real started happening. It was so unexpected, it didn't fit into what we knew of him or what he knew of himself, I think, and it was so...” She hesitates, looking for the right word. “ _Complete_. It was... I thought it was one of those things that people say are just meant to be. Y'know, _soulmates_ , and all that bollocks.”

 

Sherlock can't help it, he snorts.

 

“I know,” she says, smiling at herself without a trace of embarrassment. “But, y'know – if it means anything, it wasn't me who suggested he invite you.” She looks at Sherlock. “It was him.”

 

*

 

 _Is it that simple?_ he thinks, as he watches John smile and chatter with one of Harry's straight acquaintances, who has a red-clawed hand on John's arm and an air of anxiety at the feeling of her life running out. Two divorces, a short stint as a lesbian, _pathetic_. She's glanced over at Sherlock a few times, as if trying to suss something out, and Sherlock makes sure to meet her gaze every time.

 

He can wait. John's smile is already cracking, his eyes glazing over at her inanity.

 

*

 

He corners John just when he's hailed a taxi outside the reception hall. He grabs John's shoulder and spins him around; John makes a startled sound and looks up at him with wide, surprised eyes. The taxi skids to a halt in front of them.

 

“You want to come back,” Sherlock tells him, feeling almost feverish with it, with the magnitude of the words in his mouth. “That's why you wanted me here. You want to come back.”

 

John's jaw tenses, and for a terrible moment his certainty wavers and Sherlock thinks he must have got it wrong.

 

“A minute, please,” John tells the cabbie, who's looking up at them impassively through the open car window, jaw working on a piece of chewing gum.

 

He tugs Sherlock away from the cab, which is illogical since the driver can still easily see and hear them, but Sherlock lets him, hope pulsing like a vulnerable heartbeat in the pit of his stomach.

 

“Look,” John begins, “it's not that simple.”

 

“How is it not simple? If you want to come back –” He forces down the _then do, please, please, please, please, please, I can hardly stand it anymore_ , because it won't help.

 

“I'm still figuring it out,” John says, voice pinched.

 

“Well, I've figured it out for you. You want to come back.”

 

John glowers at him. “Not your call, Sherlock.”

 

“I can't help it if I see –”

 

“I don't _fucking know_ , okay?” John snaps. He takes a breath to steady himself. “I don't know what I want.”

 

“Don't tell me you're happier this way,” Sherlock says, through clenched teeth, grabbing onto John's shoulder. “You know I see right through you.”

 

John glares at him, eyes bright with anger. “Like you have any clue when I'm happy or unhappy,” he says, his voice sharp.

 

Sherlock accepts the sting of that, adds it to the rest of things that polish the sharp edge of his guilt, because he deserves nothing less. “You're the one who left,” he says, quietly.

 

“Yeah,” John says, not so quietly. “Yeah, because I _had to_ and you know it.”

 

Sherlock, who knows he's a force of destruction but who can't help himself, not this close to John, not with the inside of him raw and painful with the weight of the past two years, seizes John by the back of his neck and kisses him, hard, with a burst of want that he didn't know was waiting inside him. John pushes at his shoulders, trying to force him back, but then seems to change his mind and bites upwards, licking into Sherlock's mouth roughly. He tastes horrible – one of Harry's non-alcoholic cocktails – but he's warm and he's John and he's kissing back, sloppy and angrily.

 

He breaks away, hands clenched around Sherlock's lapels, and says: “Fuck,” against Sherlock's mouth, voice shaking.

 

“Oi, mate,” the cabbie calls lazily, “think you two're ready to take this home?”

 

John looks up at Sherlock, eyes wide, and lets go of his jacket. “No,” he tells Sherlock, quietly, the kiss-bitten line of his mouth tense.

 

Sherlock, hands clenched into fists, watches the taxi's tail lights until he loses them in the stream of traffic on the street.

 

*

 

 

_I'm sorry. Shouldn't have_

_done that._

_S_

 

 

_Which part?_

_J_

 

 

Sherlock doesn't know how to respond, and stuffs his phone into the space between the cushions of the sofa, sleeping there in fitful spells, disoriented each time he wakes up.

 

 

 

**December 2027**

 

_From:_ [ _sh@thescienceofdeduction.co.uk_ ](mailto:sh@thescienceofdeduction.co.uk)

_To:_ [ _800541@ministryofdefence.gov_ ](mailto:800541@ministryofdefence.gov)

 

_Subject: Re: Christmas_

 

_Thanks for your so subtly expressed concern for my psychological well-being, but I'd honestly rather be alone than spend another evening watching you and Mummy pretend to have something to say to each other. Do give her my love._

_Sherlock_

 

 

_From:_ [ _800541@ministryofdefence.gov_ ](mailto:800541@ministryofdefence.gov)

_To:_ [ _sh@thescienceofdeduction.co.uk_ ](mailto:sh@thescienceofdeduction.co.uk)

 

_Subject: Re: Re: Christmas_

 

_Your complete lack of familial spirit is a little disappointing, I must admit, though of course not surprising. I personally thought we had a marvellous time last year. Mummy will be disappointed, but I'm used to that. Merry Christmas._

_M_

 

 

 

**March 2028**

 

Peter's visits are infrequent at best, but Sherlock quite enjoys them. Peter doesn't mind long silences, and he seems to enjoy helping Sherlock with the hives. He also doesn't let Sherlock pinch any of his cigarettes, with an amusing sort of concern for Sherlock's health and a nonchalant indifference to his own. Sherlock likes that kind of inconsistency.

 

“How do you afford this place on your own?” he asks Sherlock one day, as they sit in the verandah with coffee after collecting honey.

 

Sherlock grimaces. “My parents were... _are_... well off, let's put it that way. My mother has a fund and I was able to buy John out.” He pushes the memory away; John saying, with a raised eyebrow: _You never even needed a flatmate, did you?_ Scraps of displaced anger floating around in the aftermath.

 

“Huh,” Peter says, with that particular insensitivity to touchy subjects that is another thing Sherlock likes about him. “I thought John came for that job with us because you two didn't have much of a stable income.”

 

“I'd always refused to touch that money,” Sherlock says. “I don't think John ever even knew how much it is.”

 

“Ah, I know how that feels,” Peter says brightly. “You're an adult, completely self-sufficient, and then suddenly there's that ruddy divorce and you have to go beg for help like a schoolboy.”

 

“I never had to ask for anything. The money just appears.” Which, he supposes, might be worse in a way.

 

“Yeah, well,” Peter says, with a touch of bitterness, “it does make you think about that old idea that you choose your partners to be like your parents. It's infantilising, to have to go back to your mum and dad. Like your whole adult life is based on the assumption that you're _with_ someone, and if not, you're still a child instead of your own person.” He looks at Sherlock, a certain kind of rebelliousness in his gaze. “Like it's impossible to be someone just with _yourself._ ”

 

Sherlock thinks about Daddy, surfacing from his research now and then to appear genuinely surprised that he had children. “John isn't much like my father,” he says.

 

“Ah, well, that means that _you_ probably are,” Peter says, and gives him a guiltless grin.

 

“I always thought I really wasn't,” Sherlock says, and then frowns a little at himself, at the so casual release of such intimate information to Peter. There's something about Peter, about the unassumingness of him, that makes it easy to forget that they don't really know each other.

 

“Sadly,” Peter says, bringing his mug to his mouth, “that only tells me you're more like him than you know.”

 

*

 

That night, as he stares up at the shadows thrown on the wall by the birches with the moon behind them, a memory – undeleteable, those shards of his childhood – floats up and breaks through the surface of Sherlock's thoughts. Daddy, at the breakfast table, poring over a manuscript of sorts. Mummy, in one of her energetic periods, straightening Sherlock's collar, and telling him: “It's your daddy's birthday. Why don't you go over and tell him how much you love him.” Daddy, elongated with a child's perspective of the world, patting him on the head without looking up: “Yes, Mycroft, I love you too. There's a good boy.”

 

A second memory, on the heels of the first: Sherlock, angled and awkward with early puberty, steadying the swaying form of Mummy, shivery and jumpy like a horse despite the sedatives. Mycroft, already at ease in a suit and with a deepening voice that will make Sherlock insane with jealousy until his own will plunge even deeper a few years later, addressing the mourning crowd: “My father was a very... affectionate man.” Mycroft learned very early on the tricks of words, the power of silence between them. A very clear moment in the memory, though Sherlock is far from sure it happened: the brothers looking at each other over their father's coffin, and making a never-spoken-of pact with the tightening of their mouths.

 

Sherlock, 52, alone in his bed, shakes his head against the pillow and can't help but laugh a little, quiet and suppressed.

 

 

 

**June 2028**

 

He can hear John hesitating on the other side of the line.

 

“Come on, John,” he says. “You know I'll hate it and I'll need you to keep me from making too many enemies. They asked me to prepare an _introductory speech_. God knows what might happen if you're not there with me.”

 

The barely audible sound of John breathing out one of his silent laughs. “Are you sure it would be good for you if I was there?” he finally asks Sherlock.

 

“Oh, stop it. I don't care.”

 

Silence. Finally, in a tone of voice Sherlock knows well – John's _I-know-I-shouldn't-but-fuck-it_ tone: “Okay, sure. Why not. I'll come. Should be interesting.”

 

*

 

Sherlock presents his findings about the influence of competitive subspecies making honey in adjacent hives on the quantity and quality of the honey in about seven minutes, throwing his notes away halfway because they're full of evident truths that everyone already knows anyway, and is quite aware of the fact that most of the audience is gaping at him, and that John, in the second row (which is also, in effect, the back row), is hiding a grin behind his hand.

 

When the next speaker steps up to the plate, looking distinctly nervous, he gets about two sentences in before Sherlock picks out a mistake. “Actually,” he begins, pointing a finger at the man, who suddenly seems quite desperate to switch places with the people in the front row.

 

*

 

“Only you'd be able to make an amateur apiology meeting eventful,” John mutters at him after the chair of the club has spent a full minute shaking Sherlock's hand, nearly in tears. “I think that man who came to talk about his Do-It-Yourself hives might never recover.”

 

“And I didn't even get to my research on the interference between the solubility of honey and the degree of calcium hardness of tea water,” Sherlock deadpans back, and smiles when he sees John bringing his fist up to his mouth to stifle his laughter.

 

“Brilliant,” John murmurs after he manages to calm down, “you're rubbish, and you're brilliant.”

 

Sherlock turns to look at him, and a warm shiver travels up his spine at the moment of tenderness that passes between them, until John looks away and clears his throat.

 

“John,” Sherlock says softly, unwilling to let it go that easily.

 

John makes a show of looking at his watch. “I should be getting off,” he says, and then looks at Sherlock with an expression on his face that almost suggests an apology. “I'm having lunch with Rajid.”

 

“Right,” Sherlock says, and wonders at the sustained ability of his hope to spark and fade with the hurtles of reality.

 

*

 

He does think, later, that John was right to question if this would be any good for him.

 

 

 

**November 2028**

 

In some ways, the worst part of it is, he knows John is lonely _too_ , in his grubby one-bedroom flat in Islington that he defends with what seems like genuine gusto _._ He never says so, but Sherlock reads it easily, in the rapid greying of his hair, in the way he sometimes seems vaguely upset with himself for saying something to Sherlock that he hadn't meant to say. The mark of the lonely human being: to slowly unlearn how to draw boundaries around conversation, because you're usually your own partner.

 

To be considered a fate worse than existential loneliness, Sherlock thinks, not without wry humour, what exactly does that make you?

 

 

 

**February 2029**

 

Sometimes it stings so much, the way he isn't capable of getting the house to get warm in the cold flushes of winter, that he spends night after night in the King's Head, having the special and secretly hoping John will show up too.

 

“You know,” Ellen says one evening as she refills his cup of coffee, “did you know that at first I didn't know if you really existed?”

 

He raises his eyebrows at her.

 

She smiles, tired. “What with John always cancelling your dinner reservations. At first I thought he'd made you up.” She pushes a strand of hair behind her ears and looks at him for a moment, pensive. Then, roused by some internal device, she moves on, other tables demanding her attention.

 

Sherlock sits, fingers playing with a packet of sugar, and remembers the texts when Sherlock whisked John away on cases, the defensiveness with which John angled them away from Sherlock.

 

He flicks the sugar away, and drinks his coffee plain, wincing at the bitterness of it.

 

 

 

**May 2029**

 

Sherlock is the one who finds Cecylia.

 

She'd given him a key, because when she was out back with the dogs she couldn't see the light that told her someone was ringing the bell. He remembers shouldering the door open with some difficulty because the huge bag of dog food in his hands forced him to use his bad shoulder, and he also remembers being in a rare good mood, the coolness of the day and the promise of watching her work on her latest painting lifting his spirits considerably.

 

But then he finds her.

 

She hasn't been dead for long – about a day, he'd estimate, and he's glad for the unseasonable chilliness they've been having. She's on the sofa and looks like she's sleeping, a macabre but still somehow humorous addition to the taxidermied animals around her, now part of the tableau. Sherlock has to stifle a nervous laugh looking at her, and then the next moment is pierced by a dart of uncomplicated sadness, a soft kind of wishing it were otherwise he hasn't often experienced.

 

The dogs are frantic. He feeds them; still they bark, sensing that something is seriously wrong.

 

He sits in the armchair opposite her for a while, hands steepled. She seems so calm. He wonders, distractedly, if she believed in a life after death. There had been something religious about the way she preserved all of her animals, but he'd never asked her about it, and he regrets it now, in that great silence.

 

Then he calls the police.

 

“Any family?” the young sergeant asks him, clearly daunted by the fact that he's talking to Sherlock Holmes, living legend of the English police force. It's a little annoying.

 

“Not that I know of,” Sherlock says.

 

He goes through her address book. One of her colleagues in Guatemala expresses a telephone-appropriate modicum of shock and sadness and tells him they might have a memorial service of their own, but – apologetically – there's only three of them and they can't leave the shelters. He thinks Cecylia would approve of their sense of priorities. He goes through the rest of it, until the pencil becomes so faded he can't read it anymore, and tries to call some of the numbers attached to people with the same last name as she; he is either met by uncomprehending and increasingly angry Polish, the dead tone of a long-disconnected line, or, in the case of what must be the one land telephone line still operative in the whole of Europe, a stiff announcement that Mr. Nawrot is dead and has been for twenty-five years.

 

John comes to the funeral. They're the only two people there, which noticeably makes John sad – a characteristic kind of sensitivity to loneliness that Sherlock conjectures has increased since he moved into his bachelor's flat. (He doesn't say to John: she was a lot less lonely than I am.)

 

“Come on,” John says, after, undoing his collar in the sudden break-through of spring. “Buy you coffee.”

 

Birds, sounding surprised and feverish, chatter away in the golden fuzz of almost-leaves in the trees above their heads.

 

“I wonder if she wouldn't've preferred to be taxidermied,” Sherlock tells John as they walk, sharing a pavement with plenty of space between their bodies, and they pass an amused, almost secretive smile between them that warms Sherlock deep in the pit of his stomach.

 

*

 

“Wonder if my landlord'll let me take one of her dogs,” John says over coffee, looking pensive.

 

Sherlock eyes him. “Since when do you like dogs?”

 

John looks back with a gentle challenge in his eyes. “Ever since I was old enough to play with them. Always disliked cats, always loved dogs. Mum was terrified of them, though, so I never had one as a child. Didn't think there was something about me you didn't know, right Holmes?”

 

Sherlock lets that one pass with a surge of resignation. “Well, it'd be good if you could take one. It'll be hard trying to find homes for all of them. Some are ancient and some have been pretty seriously abused. People don't generally go for that when they're looking for a nice new dog for the family.”

 

“I like the bulldog,” John says.

 

“He's yours,” Sherlock says.

 

John smiles. “Better ask my landlord first.”

 

There's a companionable silence.

 

“You know,” John says, “she was bloody formidable.”

 

“That she was,” Sherlock says, and takes a gulp of coffee, thinking of Cecylia.

 

 

 

**August 2029**

 

It starts happening long before he's ready to acknowledge it, but the first time he goes out to the hives and looks down at his hands for at least 15 seconds before finally finding the word for what he forgot inside – _bee brush_ , for Christ's sake – he has to admit to himself that what he feels as he goes back on shaky legs is nothing less than a deep, hollow fear.

 

It's funny, because other fears floated to the foreground of his life after he met John, but this is, in the end, the one constant one, the one that most of his nightmares centre around. When he imagines himself in hell, it's always this: the white noise of forgetting, the slow contentment of a mind wiped empty. (He's always hated the idea of Lethe, and remembers arguing heatedly about it with his Classics teacher; the blank slate, to him, is not the pinnacle of happiness, but the the depth of all conceivable torment. _What are you if you don't remember what you've always known? - Finally at peace,_ Mr. Finkle had said, flushed in the face of so much youthful resistance.)

 

*

 

_Think something might be wrong_

_with me. Could use your assistance._

_S_

 

John calls five minutes later. “Are you okay?” he sounds breathless, as though he's just climbed a flight of stairs.

 

“I'm fine,” Sherlock says automatically.

 

There is a moment of John just breathing, waiting for more. In spite of everything, Sherlock smiles a little at the way they know each other.

 

“I'm somewhat worried,” he forces himself to say.

 

“About?”

 

“Can you just come over?”

 

John pauses just long enough to suggest that he's thinking of saying no.

 

“Please,” Sherlock says, feeling the vice of fear tightening in his chest.

 

Another pause, but the quality of John's silence changes. “All right,” he finally says. “I, um, I need to run some errands, but I'll be there in... say, three hours, okay?”

 

“Yes.” Sherlock takes a breath. “Thank you.”

 

*

 

John looks at him, serious over the rim of his glasses: the clear, intent eyes of the doctor, trained to pick up symptoms the patient overlooks. “But it's not like you find yourself forgetting that you've done something and doing it again, or talking about the same thing twice without remembering the first conversation.”

 

Sherlock lets out a breath of frustration. “I don't _think so_ , John, but to be honest it's fairly hard to tell when you're always alone.”

 

John's eyes sharpen a little, lose their impersonal edge. He looks on the verge of saying something snappy, and then with a visible effort swallows it back down. “Noted,” he says, a little too crisply. “But it's never happened that you've, I dunno, gone round to the shops and came home to find the cupboards already full, or that you went to collect the honey to see that you'd already done it.”

 

“No,” Sherlock says, feeling churlish.

 

“Do you know where you are when you wake up?” John asks.

 

“Yes,” Sherlock says. Doesn't add the _though I still sometimes think you're going to be here too._

 

“Okay. Do you immediately recognise people when you see them?”

 

Sherlock leans back. “Given that there's only about four people I speak to with some regularity in my life, that's not exactly the greatest of achievements, is it?”

 

John draws up his shoulders. “Look, do you want me to help or do you just want to make me feel like shit,” he says sharply.

 

Sherlock looks at him, then drops his gaze for a moment in an unsaid apology. When he looks back up, John looks calmer again.

 

“Okay,” he says, in response to the silence. “So what you're saying is you have trouble finding words sometimes, you sometimes forget things that you never would've five years ago, and it takes you longer to find the way through your mind palace when you go in.”

 

“Yes,” Sherlock says tightly.

 

John leans forward, resting his elbows on his thighs, and looks at Sherlock for a long, intense moment; it's almost as if he's trying to see into his memory, see if there's any holes there, any infections. “Sherlock,” he says then, cautiously. “Do you realise that what you're describing is perfectly normal at your age?”

 

“Perfectly normal,” Sherlock says, immediately piqued. “What happens in my mind is not supposed to be _perfectly normal._ ”

 

“Oh, come on, you know what I mean,” John says with a frown. “You're not a superhuman. Your mind ages just like everyone else's. There's nothing _wrong_ with that.”

 

“There is if you're me,” Sherlock says hotly, to hide the broadening sense of despair inside him.

 

John leans back, away from the close eye contact. “I'm not an expert in memory, but based on what you just told me I really think you're fine.”

 

Sherlock leans in to make up for the increased distance. “I can _feel_ it slipping away, John. Here.” He indicates his forehead.

 

John looks at him with mild concern. “Look, I think that if you were to take tests you'd turn out to be unimaginably _above_ the normal curve of memory deterioration in people your age, okay?” He smiles, a little wryly. “I'm sure I'm a hundred times worse than you are. Anyway, there's no history whatsoever in your family of memory conditions, and there's also _no indication of any in you._ ” He emphasises the final words to talk over Sherlock, who had started to object. “Look, you've always valued my professional opinion, right?”

 

“Yes,” Sherlock says hollowly.

 

“My professional opinion is that you're _fine_. More than fine. I know how important it is to you to feel in control of your brain, but Sherlock, seriously.” John looks earnest. “There is nothing wrong with your mind. You're just spooking yourself thinking of these things.”

 

Sherlock exhales, his fingers around the arms of his chair unclenching. “I just feel...”

 

John waits for it.

 

“... vulnerable,” Sherlock finally allows himself to say.

 

John smiles a little, and gets to his feet, reaching for his coat. “You mean growing older has made you realise you can't turn back time and you'll never really be immortal? Welcome to the daily realities of everyone else.”

 

“I've never been like everyone else,” Sherlock says, watching John slip into his jacket with a sense of surging regret.

 

“No one really is,” John says, almost vaguely, and pins Sherlock with a soft look. “You'll be fine, okay? Don't lose sleep over this. Train yourself – just... keep going into your mind palace, keep hanging onto whatever it is you do in there. You know it's all about repetition, about keeping everything flexible. In some senses the brain is just like a muscle. You're not going to lose it.” Seeing Sherlock's face, he adds, with emphasis: “I _promise_.”

 

Sherlock loves him. “Will you stay for dinner?” he blurts out. “I mean –” he amends, “I don't actually have anything in, but we could call in something from The King's Head.”

 

John raises an eyebrow. “What did you do to get Ellen to run a take-away service just for you?”

 

Sherlock shrugs, feeling bored at simply the memory of it. “Located her wedding ring for her after she took it off to mow the lawn – God knows why. She thought it'd been stolen. It was in the bedside cabinet.”

 

John laughs a little, hands hovering over his coat zip. He seems indecisive.

 

“Will you? Stay?” Sherlock prompts.

 

He can see John's adam's apple bob as he swallows. “I – sure,” he finally says. “It's not like I've got any other plans.”

 

“I know,” Sherlock says, and John lightly rolls his eyes.

 

*

 

Over Ellen's shepherd's pie, Sherlock makes the decision like it's the easiest of his life, and grabs John's hand. It still feels familiar, John's skin: always a bit dry from constantly washing it between patients, with a resilient callus on his middle finger from the strange way he holds his pen. John lets Sherlock trace it, that small knob of tough skin, lets Sherlock draw his fingers over the back of his hand without a word.

 

“Sherlock,” he finally says, voice sounding smothered.

 

“I don't care anymore,” Sherlock says, a little nonsensically. “Please come back, John. Just – come back.”

 

John swallows and looks down at their hands.

 

“I've been managing,” Sherlock says, “and I know you have been too. I know you've been... fine. And I can tell that you like it to some extent, just carrying on, just the calm and quiet without me there to mess it all up or to make it more exciting. But please, John. I don't want to anymore. I don't want to just _manage_. And I think you don't want to be just _fine_ for the rest of your life either, if you're honest with yourself.”

 

Something tenses in John's jaw. “I knew you were going to do this,” he says.

 

“That's why you said you'd stay,” Sherlock says immediately.

 

John looks doubtful. “Why do you even want me to come back?”

 

It's a test, Sherlock is sure it is. He can think of thousands of reasons, all of them rushing past him urgently, popping in and out of his consciousness like lights being switched on and off – “Because,” he says, “I miss you.”

 

John exhales, and noticeably deflates with it, his body slumping. “You know, when I came here, I thought that even if you were going to ask me to come back, I'd say no. It's... I see it, okay. I see how you look at me now.” He shakes his head, mouth thin. “You'd never stop thinking about me leaving again.”

 

Sherlock breathes a soft laugh. “I never did, before, either.”

 

There is no response from John for a second, then he blinks, his lips parting in realisation.

 

“Look, it's all right,” Sherlock says, and grips John's hand tighter. “At the beginning it was just a game. Thinking when you'd get fed up and leave. And then you never did and it started being _different_ , but... I was still waiting for it, in some way.” He shrugs. “And then when it _did_ finally happen all I could really think of was how right you were to leave.”

 

John shakes his head, slowly from side to side. Sherlock ignores it.

 

“ _It doesn't matter_ ,” he says, insistently. “Every year with you was an enrichment of a life that before I met you I never expected to have any kind of companionship at all. Which was fine, before.” He waits a moment, but John is quiet, just looking at him. “It was worth it,” he finishes, suddenly sure that it was.

 

John is pale. “Christ,” he says, and he sounds a little angry. “So you're telling me you spent ten years with me counting the days until I'd leave you. For _fuck's sake_ , Sherlock. What made you think you deserved that?”

 

Sherlock smiles without showing his teeth. “That was only proven when it happened.”

 

John stares at him, stricken. “That's no way – to spend your life,” he says, voice wavering.

 

“I'm telling you, it was worth it.”

 

“How can it have been?” John looks down at their hands with wide eyes. “You... so you never _did_ trust me. You always thought I'd just give up and leave you.” His eyes click up to Sherlock's, and he looks vaguely disgusted. “And I _did_. Jesus Christ.”

 

Sherlock shakes his head. “I've always trusted you. Always. From the very beginning, which was a bit unsettling, to be honest.” He pauses. “Imagining that you might one day run out of love to put into this was only acknowledging that in some ways you know more than I do.”

 

John frowns deeply at him, as though Sherlock's insulted him, but after a few moments it melts away, to leave his face lined and tired. “It wasn't _love_ I ran out of,” he says, quietly. “Just... energy, and...” He swallows, searching for words, and then seems to give up. They sit for a long moment, John's hand warm and still under Sherlock's fingers. “And you really still want me back,” John finally says, sounding wondering. “Even after all that, and even if you'll always think that I might leave again.”

 

It's not a question, but Sherlock answers it anyway. “Yes.”

 

John presses up the back of his hand against Sherlock's palm.

 

“I need to think about it,” John says.

 

*

 

“I always thought I was the one who had to worry,” John says four days later, blowing on the steaming surface of his coffee. “I mean, here I was, a damaged invalided soldier, not much use to anyone and plain-looking as well – and then you, brilliant, striking, constantly getting bored and looking for new thrills, so incredibly out of my intellectual league it doesn't even bear talking about. How was I ever going to be enough for you?”

 

The King's Head is quiet; apart from them there's only a couple of lost-looking tourists who appear uncertain if they're still in London. Ellen is quietly watching John and Sherlock from behind the counter, having perfected the discreet between-the-lashes look of café owners everywhere to check if everything is okay.

 

Sherlock stirs sugar into his cup. He resists the temptation to simply say to John _you are enough_ , because he knows how many times John has felt like he wasn't. “You mean we really always had the same fear.”

 

“Do you know,” John begins, slowly, “that each of the times I broke it off with you, I was doing it at least in part to beat you to it?”

 

Sherlock's spoon stops stirring, and he stares at John for a long moment. “What?”

 

“It's true,” John says, looking unhappy. “The first time was just... pure panic. I could feel myself slipping, and I'd never...” He shakes his head, seeming frustrated with the search for the right words. “It felt like losing all control. It terrified me, okay. I was nearly forty and suddenly this massive, huge thing happened and it felt like nothing else that had ever happened to me. And it was _you_ , and I was sure it just wasn't the same for you, that you'd be horrified if you knew how fucking deeply I was falling for you.” He smiles a not-smile, sharp. “I thought it was just a matter of time before you'd lose interest. So I put a stop to it before you could.”

 

Sherlock presses his fingers to the beginning point of a headache between his eyes. “ _You_ were the one who kept it casual back then,” he says.

 

“Yeah,” John says. “That was the only way I felt safe.”

 

“Jesus, John,” Sherlock breathes.

 

“Of course it didn't work,” John says wryly. “I couldn't stay away from you. I never could, from the first bloody second that I knew you.”

 

“And then you jumped into the deep end,” Sherlock says, recalling with a new sense of perspective the leap of faith John had taken that New Year's Eve, years ago.

 

John smiles a smile that is all memory. “Harry said something like – if I didn't go home and get buggered before the new year started, she'd move into 221C and play match-maker herself.”

 

“A powerful incentive,” Sherlock says, and they share a half-hearted smile that lightens some of the heaviness between them.

 

“Yeah, well. She could tell from what I told her – which wasn't much – that I was miserable this way.” John looks down at his coffee.

 

“Harry never was stupid,” Sherlock says.

 

“I'll tell her you said that.”

 

“Please don't.”

 

There's a lengthy silence. One of the tourists is folding open a map, sending hopeful glances Ellen's way, fishing for assistance. Sherlock watches the way Ellen notices it and ignores it, trying to force away the heavy memory of standing in Baker Street, holding his violin bow as John left him alone after ending it, suddenly and painfully aware that he'd had his last moments of sharing skin and warmth and night conversation with John without having been aware that it was the last time.

 

In the here and now, John looks at Sherlock with a slowly emerging vulnerability that relaxes the maze of lines around his eyes, as though he's only letting it colour his expression in small stages. Sherlock's already finished his coffee, but it still feels like there's a parched place inside of him, running dry and cracking. “And what about 2025,” he finally says, heart hammering painfully.

 

John half-shrugs, his face pained. “That was... I mean, it was different, obviously. I know you had your own form of commitment to me, and honestly, I did believe it. Ten years, that isn't... and I knew you meant it.” He looks at Sherlock almost pleadingly, as though expecting Sherlock to tell him that it can't be true. “But... God, we were so unhappy then, Sherlock, and we had been for a long time, and we just kept pushing each other deeper. I just really, really thought it was over.” He pauses, licks his lips. “I remember thinking that if this break-up was going to ruin me completely, at least I would've ruined me myself. I couldn't handle the thought...” He trails off and wipes a hand over his eyes. “So I did it myself. Before _you_ could destroy me.”

 

Sherlock swallows hard. His throat feels like sand. “I was never going to break up with you,” he says hoarsely. “Never.”

 

John looks at him. “I believe that now,” he says, quietly. “Now I do.”

 

Sherlock's head is spinning with it, with the _waste_ of it, but he still reaches across the table for John's hand. “You need me just as much,” he says, an echo from another, much sharper moment.

 

John squeezes his fingers. His eyes are moist. “Think I might need you more,” he says, and then he sighs deeply, shoulders dropping a little as though he's just lost a weight that had been dragging him down all this time.

 

“Come home with me,” Sherlock says, his heart in his throat.

 

A few silent seconds float past. The sun breaks through cloud outside; John, beside the window, blinks against the sudden strengthening of the light.

 

“Yeah,” John says then, no more than a little breathy sound. “Yeah.”

 

*

 

It takes them hours to kiss. John, wide-eyed in the silvery dark of the bedroom, flecked with the shifting shadows of the birches in the moonlight, sits in Sherlock's lap and touches his fingers to Sherlock's lips, running his fingertips along the length of them until Sherlock feels like John's hands are part of him, blurring into his skin.

 

“Please,” he finally manages, tightening his arms around John's torso.

 

John smiles, then leans in and kisses Sherlock, and it's not at all complicated.

 

*

 

In the morning, John brings up tea that they drink slowly in bed, sides touching as they sit up against the headboard and stare at the wall with Cecylia's drawing of them on it.

 

“John,” Sherlock says quietly. “I can't promise you –”

 

John says: “Shhh,” and leans against Sherlock more heavily. “Neither can I,” he says, and tips his mug back against his mouth.

 

But they can learn to live with it, Sherlock thinks in a moment of clarity, later, as John sucks in a hard breath and hooks his good leg over Sherlock's hip, hands trailing down the intimate bumps of his spine as though counting them, memorising the map of his back. They can learn to live with it, moment after moment, and see where it takes them.

 

 

 

**May 2033**

 

“For fuck's sake, Sherlock – you're not helping – get off me –”

 

“Let me suck it, come on – John –”

 

John manages to fight Sherlock off and, half tripping over Gladstone, who in the excitement tries to mount John's leg, limps to the safety of the house.

 

Sherlock crashes in after him, just as he's flinging open the kitchen cupboards, scattering teabags over the floor. “John,” Sherlock says, frantic, “you have to let me suck it!”

 

“No,” John snarls, and then, finding what he needs, pushes one of the small pills out of the foil, tips it into his mouth and swallows it away. Immediately his breathing seems to settle – _placebo, it can't help that quickly_ , a corner of Sherlock's mind provides, but the rest of it is just happy to see that John's neck doesn't seem to be swelling yet, and he still has enough breath to laugh at Sherlock's face.

 

There is a moment of calm restored, as even Gladstone stops yapping and John gingerly brings his fingers to his throat and traces the sting, wincing. “Fucking bees,” he finally says.

 

“You think you'll need the A&E?”

 

“Hard to tell. It might still swell. But the cetirizine should work.”

 

Sherlock watches him closely. “Sure you don't want me to suck it out?”

 

John lifts his eyes to his, and smiles. “You randy old man,” he says, and, obligingly, tips back his head.

 

“You know how mortal danger gets me going,” Sherlock says as he moves in, smiling now. With one finger, he tips John's chin up further and lowers his mouth to the small red circle around the sting, sucking carefully, all the while gauging the spiking of John's pulse, the life of him, the nearness of his body, under his fingertip.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out these gorgeous illustrations by RatBatBlue, done for KatiSark's Russian translation for the SH Tandem Fest:
> 
>  
> 
> [Cover](https://disk.yandex.ru/public/?hash=BP2eExZSrVPmFLrJ/ipz9zCrGV5%2B9mj7loaCAO59PGU%3D&locale=ru)  
> [Illustration of Ch. 1](https://disk.yandex.ru/public/?hash=44uIx1HbHFGyuZfVzms13Ix7Ig%2BAfZMknTkgEFgNyYY%3D)  
> [Illustration of Ch. 2](https://disk.yandex.ru/public/?hash=j1evDEuDBqvGdJXFYJ88Nckx6MQDHwBZWz%2BX9kQisjQ%3D)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover: The Speed of Objects in Motion](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2275356) by [January_Marlinquin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/January_Marlinquin/pseuds/January_Marlinquin)




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